


Unveil My Unsightly Heart

by Mizzy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Evil, Bad Jokes, Cap_Ironman Reverse Bang Challenge, First Kiss, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mirror Universe, Sleepy Cuddles, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tragicomedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking over an old prototype helicarrier for its future viability as a base for the Avengers should have just been a routine day full of bickering and non-adventure for Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. </p><p>But when they're catapulted into an alternate universe – where their alternate selves are married and battling with a mysterious threat – the two are forced to get over their differences in order to figure out what's going on, before it's too late. </p><p>Because there's more going on than meets the eye, and Steve and Tony falling in love might just be the most dangerous thing that can happen. Not just for one universe, but for all of them…<br/><i>[Iron Man 3-compliant.]</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** :
> 
>   * Minor character deaths. Go [here to find out who](http://listography.com/8220025595/notes/unveil_my_unsightly_heart) only if you really need to. It sort of spoils the end, but if you're happier knowing, there's the link.
>   * Anxiety attack. Nightmares.
>   * Mentions of water torture and water-related trauma.
>   * Spoilers for _Iron Man 3_. Two tiny possible spoilers for _Captain America 2_ which are pretty common knowledge anyway, I think.
>   * Profanity.
>   * About a thousand dick jokes.
>   * Yeah, this is about the millionth fic this reverse-bang to have alternates running around. I regret _nothing_.
>   * If unsure, please find a partner reader to check it over for your specific triggers. Thank you.
> 


"Well, this is delightful," Tony Stark says as he enters the room. His footsteps echo resonantly around the control room of the abandoned Triskelion project — Fury's failed prototype helicarrier — making it sound emptier than it actually is. Although there are some partial structures around the building, it looks like as soon as funding got cut for the building they just _left_ everything and vacated the base. It's a total waste in Steve's opinion. "I absolutely love what you've done with the place."

Steve does his best not to visibly bristle. The fact that it takes more effort than it does to subdue an entire HYDRA unit does not escape his notice.

"You're late," Steve says, without even turning around.

"Hello to you, too," Tony says, wandering into Steve's eye line and not even bothering to pretend to look offended. Either very little affects him, or he's as much of a mental duck as Steve, valiantly paddling while trying his best to look unruffled on the surface and basically just stay afloat. The internet said something about Tony's penchant for making duck faces at the camera, so maybe Steve should be generous and plump for the latter option. 

" _Besides,_ " Tony adds, poking at one of the wall panels and sneering in open disgust. "A Stark is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to."

Great, Steve thinks. That's definitely Tony Stark's quoting voice. He'd like to think Tony's not meaning to deliberately wind him up, that Tony just leaks cultural references wherever he goes, but that's just Steve's overly optimistic side speaking.

He knows Captain America can get on with Iron Man. He knows in a stressful, world-threatening situation that they can reach an agreement and work together.

This isn't a world-threatening situation, and Steve does not know if _Steve Rogers_ and _Tony Stark_ will get on when there's nothing of real substance on the line. Steve's trying not to be colored by his past history with Tony's father, but it's difficult, seeing how much of Howard Stark lies on his son's face. And in his sarcasm.

"I'll tell you the first thing we need to change," Tony says. "The _location_. I think my eyebrows froze. The press will think I had botox."

Steve squints. He's been trying his best _not_ to think about the icy location of the Triskelion, because he's been trying not to think about how the whole heavy base might sink through the ice, and _why did SHIELD build this thing in Alaska._ It's not conducive to any sort of good thoughts, Steve thinks. "I'm squinting because I don't know what botox is," Steve explains. "I agree with the location change."

"I do like it when people agree with me," Tony says. "And botox is a weird, face injection thing done by vain people who aren't as naturally young and virile as me."

Steve forces himself to deconstruct his squint. It's much easier to ignore Tony and not argue with him. "Our reconnoitre shouldn't take more than two hours," Steve says, because he feels a little out of his depth, and it's the best attempt at small talk he can muster.

"I'm officially on SHIELD time," Tony says, tapping his empty wrist where a watch might be, and walking past Steve to glance at what might have been windows, once upon a time. Tony hugs his suit jacket closed as he moves, because the Triskelion is protected from the ice but it's still cold; it had been abandoned way before the heating system was installed. Steve's jacket is thinner than Tony's, but it's not for financial reasons — SHIELD's outfitted him with a ridiculous amount of clothes considering Steve used to make do with a wardrobe of about eight things, total — he doesn't really feel the cold much since the serum. "I'm yours until five o' clock," Tony continues. "Well. Four. I factor in my travel time. So do with me what ye will, _mon Capitane_."

Steve wrinkles his nose, but only because Tony's not looking in his direction. 

"I don't know how much information Fury gave you," he says, straightening up and following Tony along the metal walkway that splits the Triskelion's control room in two. "I'm pretty sure I can handle scoping out if the layout's good enough for our strategic and logical needs, but science, technology... Things are an awful lot smaller than they used to be on that front than my time." Steve looks up at the sweeping ceiling of the Triskelion, and the metal-latticed roof. "And some things are bigger."

Tony shoots him a blank look over the edge of his sunglasses that curls into an almost amused expression. "That's what she said, Cap," he says, a little too cheerfully, and damn if Steve hasn't walked himself into innuendo. 

The Howling Commandos were fond of doing that sort of thing to him, too. Steve ought to have gotten used to it. Or at least he should have some stock phrases, something to give the _illusion_ that he can defend himself against verbal silliness that doesn't sound uptight and preachy.

Silence is usually his default recourse. "That's what _who_ said?" he blurts, suddenly.

The look Tony gives him, infinitely amused, tells him that maybe he should have _stayed_ with his default recourse.

"I can definitely see why this thing wasn't able to fly," Tony says, amiably, ignoring Steve's question. "Much too dense building material. How this ever got past even _one_ committee..." He trails off, prodding at some of the more technological-looking items in the room. "Well, that's bureaucracy for you."

"I guess some things really haven't changed," Steve says, thinking of some of the bureaucracy back in his time. He's slowly learning to think like that, even though _back in his time_ still feels like just a few months ago to him.

"Some things have," Tony says, brushing his hands together as he steps back from the table he was poking. "Like me. Look at me. Ready and waiting to listen to your orders." Tony shifts his weight from the balls of his feet to his toes and back again, and there's an odd curl to Tony's lips that makes Steve think he's missing something.

It feels like Tony's mocking him, and Steve can't figure out how, and that makes him more annoyed than any concrete slur could. "Let's just get this survey over and done with," Steve mutters.

Tony salutes, off-centre and much too loose. Steve doesn't correct the gesture. It's probably not worth the effort.

* * *

It's not too weird scoping out the first floor of the Triskelion with Tony Stark. Tony apparently takes his alternate-Thursday consulting role relatively seriously, and is mostly quiet as he takes a few brief notes on a tablet. Steve's been taking notes the old-fashioned way, pencil and paper, and Tony hasn't even made a quip about it. 

Steve's starting to feel pleasantly surprised by this whole trip — if you exclude that he thinks that this place is way too big for a base for the number of Avengers they have right now — when they move into the last main room of the first floor.

Because that's when it starts to feel _weird_.

Abandoned buildings have always made him melancholic on some level. During the depression, families just upped and vanished from their homes, boarded up the windows and just left, no note, no forwarding address. Moonlight flits were a common sight back then, when money was a wish and a prayer, and escaping to something better was the only version of the American dream people had left. 

All too often, no one remembered who used to occupy the now-abandoned space. Sometimes you could fit together a story of who'd been there from the things left behind (a bottomless saucepan, a charcoal sketch stuck to the wall with something unidentifiable, a cracked cotton reel). Sometimes you could recall a face or a name of someone who used to be there, but there'd be no hole on the sidewalk where they used to be; people just moved to fill the gaps, like liquid filling free space. Sometimes other people would move into the abandoned building, legally or otherwise, and in the latter case, eyes would follow you from behind slats. Watching to see if you were a danger. Waiting.

Tony doesn't seem to notice the weirdness. Not at first. In each new room, Tony's drawn to the electronics like honey to a bee. Buzz, buzz, buzz. The hum of equipment. Steve's faintly remembering one of Tony's Iron Man suits, gold and black, when he realizes why the shape of this room is familiar.

"We are _not_ soldiers." The quote rattles around Steve's skull in Tony's voice, laced with the same emotion that Tony spoke them with, and Steve's stomach cramps unhappily.

Over from where he's gravitated to, a long bank of powered-down control interfaces, Tony turns to look at him. The overhead windows, far above their heads, don't allow much light into the place, and stripes of shadow cast themselves across Tony's face, underlining his curious expression. "What did you say?"

Steve hadn't meant to say it out loud. For a moment he's distracted by those lines of light, emphasising the shape of Tony's face, making him look like a stranger, reminding Steve of how little he knows Howard's son even after all they've done together. The stripes should be making him think of his bee analogy, should be making him smile, but they don't. He's not smiling.

Tony's waiting for an answer. He's unruffled by most things. Steve has to find clues to how Tony Stark is feeling in the minutiae. A tiny huff of breath. A nervous tic. And there's one now — a tiny furrow of the brow. 

Tony's curious. It shouldn't be a surprise; scientists and curiosity went together like Clint and his bow. Like most soldiers, Steve favours taciturnity. The fact that Steve's volunteered to say something of his own volition is probably strange to Tony, who doesn't favour silence as readily as Steve does.

"Just recalling a memory," Steve says, vaguely. Another clue appears — Tony's mouth flattens, barely perceptible in the striped light. _Prison bar light,_ Steve's memory unhappily says. The vague answer isn't going to cut it. "Doesn't the shape of this place seem familiar to you?"

It's not so much a clue as a giant, massive sign when Tony's mouth falls into an O shape wide enough to provide entry for an entire swarm of bees. Steve's not entirely pleased that his brain is conjuring disturbing imagery, but he's not surprised.

This place gives him the creeps. There's no latticed boards, no abandoned detritus that spell out the story of a fleeing family, but the feeling is there. Something watching, in the dark.

Something _waiting_.

"Huh," Tony says. Even in his confusion he fills the space with sound. He hurries over to stand closer to the construction in front of them. The glass is dirty, and ominously cracked, and Steve can see half of Tony's face reflected in amongst the grime. "I guess it makes sense. The Hulk's always been a priority to Fury."

Steve draws up closer to the edge of the cage. There's no fall for this cage, no mechanism which looks like it could dump the cage into the sky, but it's obviously meant for the Hulk.

Maybe it's meant for Bruce too. There's a metal frame of what might have been a bed, stapled to the floor with industrial bolts. There's a dirty puddle of water from leaks in the roof. This place has never been properly Hulk-proofed, but the intent is there, large and unmistakeable.

This fake base is unpleasant enough without this place in it. A prison is a prison, no matter how it's painted up and presented.

"Of course, there's the question," Tony continues, following Steve up to the glass wall of the cage. "Is Fury's priority keeping the public safe, or hoarding a formidable weapon?" 

He side glances at Steve. Steve looks back, and there's something defiant in this moment. Something unsaid that Steve can't find the right word for, that's existed in some form since meeting Tony. Since he realised there was nothing of Howard Stark in Tony's face but the moments he liked Howard the least.

Steve doesn't want to answer, because the answer is _weapon_ , and the future just feels bleaker with every new piece of information and every new realization.

If there's hope in this time, in this place, he doesn't know where to look for it.

Tony doesn't push Steve for an answer. He raps at the glass, like a kid poking at a zoo animal, and the echoed knocks break the silent deadlock between them. Tony nods, jerks his head at the door, and Steve follows him silently to the next room.

They don't look back.

* * *

Maybe silence is something that works like osmosis, or the lingering chill of the fractured Hulk cage isn't just in Steve's mind, because as they climb the metal stairway to the next floor, Tony's almost silent.

_Almost_ silent, because Tony Stark doesn't do complete silence. Maybe it's Steve super-serum enhanced hearing, but there's an echo of a note that seems to stick around Tony like a cloud.

Maybe it's his arc reactor. Steve would ask, but he doesn't quite know how to broach conversation with Tony.

It's not a slur on Tony. Steve doesn't quite know how best to start a conversation with anyone. Give him an action scenario, and he's not voiceless or shy, but take the action away, and Steve is less confident. It's probably why he likes to surround himself with talkers. Bucky was always one for filling the air with a quick quip or an _always_ hilarious story. Erskine was always quiet, wickedly sarcastic while being movingly thoughtful. Peggy was never shy about coming forward — with her fist or with her words. Howard, in-between experiments, you could barely shut up.

They're all gone now. Long gone. But Tony Stark is here, and Steve should make more of an effort to make more sound than the occasional rat lurking in the Triskelion's musky hallways.

This place feels like a graveyard, Steve thinks, and shivers. It's not the cold.

Steve hates the next room they find themselves in. He doesn't hate many things in life —mostly the usual things, bullies and nuclear weapons and the way powder sinks to the bottom of cocoa leaving an impossibly bitter sludge at the bottom of the cup — but this room is something he has to add to the list.

It's almost an octagon, with doors leading off in different directions across one half of it. A faded sign labels the door that leads off to the engine rooms. One of the doors is larger than the others, with a thick steel frame. Steve can see a flash of white of the room beyond it. It looks like a lab. 

Steve edges towards that, because it's better than the half of the octagonal room that _doesn't_ have doors punctuating its walls.

The remaining three walls are basically glass. 

Tony walks over to them, hands in his pockets, humming a little under his breath as he takes in the wide span of glass. The window to the left is cracked. It's probably a miracle all the windows are holding.

Steve ignores the way his stomach swoops a little, and he tentatively follows Tony closer to the windows, realizing exactly _why_ he hates this room so thoroughly.

The implication of the Triskelion being in Alaska has never hit Steve so physically until now. SHIELD dropped him off basically at the front door, so Steve didn't really see the outside, and he _really doesn't like it._

This room seems to crop out from the rest of the Triskelion, leaving them a very large height from above ground. Except ground isn't what's beneath them. Beneath them is _ice._ Lots of ice. Steve inhales a shudder, and pictures for a moment falling into that ice. Metal and glass breaking up around him. The water rushing in around him, swallowing him up, swallowing him down—

Steve schools his face into a neutral expression as Tony turns around. There's a question on Tony's face that fades away.

"We should check out this room next," Tony says, thumbing at the largest door.

Steve nods, not trusting his voice. If he stumbles away from the window, Tony's too kind to mention it.

Still feeling weird from that spread of _ice,_ Steve feels glad when the next room they go in has functioning lights. After all that natural light, artificial light somehow feels _safe_. Tony makes a happy sound under his breath, heading for a small unit on the wall and muttering something about a back-up solar generator. 

This all-white room is much more interesting. Steve gets another pang at the cost of things that have been left behind, but that doesn't stop him from going up to one of the five low, white trestle tables to prod at some of the items that have been left behind. 

He can just about recognise a bank of microscopes, and a few cases full of slides. There are some refrigeration units in the back, filling the air with a muted hum, and that's where Tony goes. Steve doesn't _think_ SHIELD are stupid enough to leave dangerous experiments behind, but he doesn't put it _past_ them; he freezes, tense and ready for action, as Tony tests to see if the fridges are open.

They are. The air around the door fogs up for a second, before becoming invisible against the white walls and white ceiling.

"Hey, look at _you_ ," Tony says, almost like he's talking to a pet.

Steve hurries over, trying not to look too worried. "What is it?" His voice is quiet. He's not too sure he's allowed to ask.

"Nanobots," Tony says, like it should explain everything. It doesn't. Tony prods at one of the containers, and swivels something around on them. "See here, these windows have magnification slides on them. If I twist it to ten thousand times magnification, you might be able to see something. Take a peek."

Tony proffers the container to Steve, but Steve doesn't want to touch it. He leans in closer, his eyes scanning the magnified display. After a few seconds, he sees something. Small. Tiny particles. A lot of them. Moving like a flight of swallows in the sky.

Steve squints, suddenly slightly appalled. "Are they alive?"

"No. They're miniature robots. Like... the robot in _Metropolis_ , but smaller." Tony side-eyes him, frowning a little. "You get that reference, right?"

"The film came out when I was 9, but there was a theatre down the street re-ran old movies." 

"Well," Tony says, flourishing the canister, "meet a hundred thousand mini Marias."

"A hundred _thousand_?" It sounded too many. Steve watches the movement of the nanobots, and pictures them all as the crude female robot from _Metropolis_ , swimming through the gloopy liquid inside the canister. He can't quite picture it.

"An estimation but I'm probably not far wrong." Tony pushes the canister back in place. "There's a lot. You give them all the same instruction and it's a miniature army of workers."

"Are they dangerous?" Steve tilts his head a little. He's starting to be able to picture a horde of mini Marias.

"Not with our current knowledge of Artificial Intelligence. They might be a little dangerous if I managed to mass-programme them with JARVIS' personality, but our current correlation between data and storage... One single nanobot wouldn't be enough to hold him."

Steve nods. "But you could theoretically... give them the instructions to start learning for themselves." He thinks about his own life for a moment, and his years as Captain America during the war. He was never good at following simple instructions. "Make them more into soldiers that can think and react."

Tony gives him a sharp look that Steve can't identify. "Yeah," he says, after a moment. "Look at _us,_ " he adds, suddenly becoming more animated, patting Steve on the cheek and redistributing his weight from the balls of his feet to his toes again. It must be a tic for when he's uncomfortable, Steve thinks. "We're _bonding_."

Steve frowns. "What—"

"It's my hypothesis," Tony says, prodding at another of the nanobot containers, and looking pleased at the figures that flash up on the small screen. "You haven't noticed that you've somehow miraculously been assigned to spend curious amounts of one-on-one time with the other Avengers? I was stuck for _three hours_ with Natasha on a weapon testing range. _Three hours_. It's a miracle I can still walk."

Steve's mouth opens to automatically protest at the intimation that Fury would manipulate things that way instead of outright suggesting it, but Tony's right. The Equality and Diversity session with Clint was supposedly for SHIELD's Staff Key Performance Targets. And Bruce was showing him appropriate laboratory procedure, in case Steve's assignments led him to a modern-day lab. 

"I suppose that explains why I was stuck in an elevator with Thor for an hour last month," Steve says dolefully, as the truth sinks in. 

"Not that. I'm afraid Thor's just that heavy." Tony wrinkles his nose, commiseratively. "That man's an eater." He gives Steve an appraising look, like considering Steve an _eater_ too.

Steve tries his best not to blush. He did work his way through two breakfasts that morning, but he has a fast metabolism, and he needed the energy to be able to face Tony Stark for an entire day.

Because Steve doesn't say anything, silence falls between them, and it's _awkward_. That's the only word Steve can use. Tony works his way through the fridges, prodding and making notes, and the silence is terrible.

Steve wants to break it but he doesn't know how. "So," Steve says, pushing air out of his mouth determinedly, because he's Captain America and he's not going to be scared of a little social interaction, "how's Pepper?" He hasn't interacted much with Tony's PA-slash-sweetheart, but he'd liked her when he did meet her, and they spoke on the phone a little back when they thought the Avengers Tower thing might work out. Steve hasn't heard from her in months. He had been a little disappointed at having to liaise with Mr. Hogan to find time for Tony to consult on this Triskelion project.

Tony lets out this _noise_ that makes Steve still instantly. 

Steve's probably more of an expert at putting his foot in his mouth than anything else, and as such, he's also an expert in recognising the signs.

Only after he's done it, of course. It would be so much more helpful if he could notice it _before_ he's about to do it.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, quickly. "Bu—People used to say all the time that if there was an elephant in the room, I'd not only point it out but I'd deck it in tinsel and maybe sing it a showtune. Doesn't matter how many times I'd point out I didn't _see_ the elephant in the first place."

Tony actually smiles a little. It's brief. "It's fine," he obviously lies. Steve doesn't call him on it. "It's—" His mouth wrinkles into an even briefer moue before settling into something more neutral, and then he says quickly, like ripping off a band-aid, "Turns out when she didn't have to snipe at me being distracted by Iron Man all the time, there wasn't a whole lot else we had left to talk about. Not just her. Me, too. I didn't know how to talk to her when she wasn't yelling at me."

Steve nods, and stops messing with the microscope when he nearly breaks it. "She yelled at you when you were working on Iron Man? How? To stop painting it stupid—"

Tony shoots him a look.

"—garish colours?" Steve presses on, because that's who he is, he has to own up to his thoughts, even if they're bad. "Or—"

"She thought I spent too much time on it," Tony says.

"Too much time on life and planet-saving technology," Steve says, trying the words out loud. No, they still feel odd. "Huh. That was all she said?"

"Are you trying to relationship therapy me?" Tony questions. "Actually, scratch my stubborn whining, proceed — I tried to open my heart to Bruce and he snored at me for like, a hundred and thirty minutes. Continue."

Steve shuffles. Yeah, he needs to learn when to shut up, definitely, and then maybe he'll stop landing in messes of his own making. "Sounds like she was trying to change who you are. You _are_ Iron Man. Working on the armor is part of who you are," Steve tries, feeling awkward. "People shouldn't try to fix you if they want to be with you."

"She's perfect. I think she was just trying to yank me up to her level," Tony says, looking down at some of the scattered equipment. The lack of eye contact is telling — this is probably what he really thinks about himself.

It's a total contrast to Tony Stark's public persona, which just increases the likelihood of it being truthfully what Tony feels. He's all light and mirrors in the public eye. Howard was like that too. "You put anyone on a pedestal, they're going to fall from the effort eventually," Steve says, after a moment of thinking how to say it. "Everyone's flawed. Sometimes you need space to let those flaws breathe." 

_"Everyone's flawed,_ " Tony repeats. "You're totally fired. Trouncing my self-esteem like that, what kind of registered therapist are you, Doc Rogers? Totally useless, that's the kind. I think I prefer the snoring."

"Alas, I don't snore," Steve says, sounding pathetically relieved that this awkward conversation of awkward is coming to a painful close — but, oh yeah, his brain doesn't listen as he gamely continues. "It's just, I would have figured anyone who knows you would _expect_ you to spend inordinate amount of times making the Iron Man armor. That's what you do. You fix things. Without the _Iron Man_ armor, this planet would be toast. I don't see why anyone with the capability to make something like that _wouldn't_ get obsessed by it. Regularly. So how could someone really expect you _not_ to spend time on it?"

"Yeah, well," Tony says, not making too much sense. He turns then, glancing at Steve. The bright light is unforgiving, and Steve can see how tired Tony is, the sag of skin under his eyes, the faint lines creeping in on his face. Age is catching up with Tony Stark. Steve can get in as many wars and battles as he likes, but time's the one enemy he'll never win against. "You know what?" Tony says, a moment later, pushing the last refrigerator door closed. "This _does_ suck."

"The building?" Steve blinks. He's been thinking it's not too bad. "If it's not suitable, then—"

"The building's fine," Tony says, shaking his head. "Odd, but fine. No. It just—How can _you_ — who's known me for about three blinks and the length of a teenybopper's pop career — know me better than Pepper does?" He gives a table an unnecessary shake, wiggles his eyebrows in a complicated move that Steve can't replicate (even if he wanted to), and then he shakes his head. "You don't even _like_ me," he adds, in a quiet voice.

He looks across at Steve then with a curious expression. Like he's daring Steve to challenge him on it. Steve tries to protest it, but he can't open his mouth far enough to say it, and his protest falls flat in the strange, stale air of the abandoned Triskelion.

"This place is gonna need a scrub or fifty," Steve says, eyeballing it and starting towards the second door in the lab, like the change of direction will help cement the cowardly change of topic. It's bigger than the door they came through, with a thicker frame. Steve tries to recall the partial blueprints Fury sent him last night, and thinks it's maybe a storage room that this door leads to, but he can't remember. Tony shoves his hands in his pockets and starts to follow Steve out of there, looking a little grateful that Steve's changing the subject and getting them out of the room. "Could you programme nanobots to do that, do you think? Save us some elbow grease?"

Tony draws parallel to him, and gives him a look of pleasant surprise. "The lazy man's solution. I like that." 

Steve squirms. He's still not entirely sure whether Tony Stark's approval is something he should be going out of his way to get.

Tony slaps him on the back companionably, and pushes a button on a panel next to the door. The doors slide open with a comfortable swish. Outside, the next hallway looks relatively clean, and there's a nicer smell coming through. "Hey," Tony says, a much more familiar note back in his voice. "Maybe our bonding session is gonna go well after all—"

Steve smiles, and they walk together side by side through the larger door.

Only to come face to face to seven guards with guns, pointed straight at them.

And the octagonal room that Steve hates so much is... _different._ The windows are covered by shutters.

Steve throws Tony an expression of shock.

"Sometimes I speak too soon," Tony admits, as the guards open fire.

* * *

So, it turns out the guns were tranquiliser darts of some sort. Something Steve found out after managing to take six of the guards down. Then he felt the sharp jab in his neck, and everything went to darkness.

Steve regains consciousness first, and in the amount of time he's awake before Tony, he notices four things.

One, they're in a cell.

Two, the cell is freakishly like the Hulk cell they saw earlier, including the bolted-down furniture, only this one is clean and unfortunately not cracked.

Three, there's a man in the corner of the room, outside of the cell, and he either can't hear Steve (unlikely — the glass has small air holes in every now and again) or he's ignoring Steve (more likely, from the flinching.)

Four, they've been left everything they came in with, apart from Tony's tablet.

The man in the corner of the room exits the room after a few minutes, looking at Steve hesitantly before hurrying out of the door, and Steve does what comes naturally to him — despite the fact they're probably being watched on camera.

He tries to escape.

Unfortunately, this cell — which can't be the one they saw earlier because it's clean and undamaged and Steve can't have been unconscious all _that_ long (and Tony's beard hasn't had any noticeable growth) so there's been no _time_ for someone to have come in and fixed the earlier one — has obviously still been designed with the Hulk in mind. Try as he might, Steve can't kick or punch his way through it. He tries to lever up the bed, but the bolts must be enhanced somehow with something, because he doesn't even manage to budge them the tiniest increment of an inch. He manages to bend the bed frame a small amount, but not enough to do any sort of real damage.

There's a small rectangular flat box that leads out of the cage to an equal length on the other side which looks like it might be a weak spot, but if anything it feels more impenetrable than the cage glass. He kicks and punches at it anyway.

When that doesn't work he shouts a lot, but all that does is wake Tony.

"Did you get the number of the truck that hit us?" are his first words. Along with, "Real friends don't let friends drink the amount of tequila necessary for this hangover."

"I'm afraid we're not in Kansas anymore," Steve says, instead of the response he wants to make — _we're not friends —_ remembering to keep his voice gentle. He might not be able to get drunk now, but he was never able to hold any alcohol well, and he definitely remembers what a hangover feels like.

"Wizard of Oz reference?" Tony squints one eye open from where he's lying on his side on the floor. At least their captors were thoughtful enough to put them in the recovery position. "Oh, it's you."

Steve tries not to take umbrage at that. As Tony — grumbling outrageously — rubs his head and gingerly gets into an upright sitting position, Steve does about the only thing he can do. Namely, watch Tony closely for signs of injury, and do a quick pencil sketch of the man he saw.

The man was in a lab coat. If he's a SHIELD scientist, Tony could theoretically recognise him.

Tony glares at him sourly from where he's leaning against the slightly-bent bed, in-between looking around the cell. "How long was I out?"

Steve shrugs, and draws the nose onto his sketch. "I was out for a short while. You've been out maybe an hour longer."

"And you just sat there sketching?" Tony rubs the back of his head and looks decidedly unimpressed. "Captain Pro-active."

"I _tried_ to get us out," Steve defends, anger thick in his voice, thick in his throat. He tries to swallow it back. "And the sketchbook and pencil was all I had on me. This has to be like the other cell we saw."

"Oh," Tony says, and his voice is a little croaky, so maybe Steve can allow _some_ of Tony's surliness to drowsiness from the drugs. "Hulk-proofed."

"Maybe if I'd had my shield," Steve starts, but _what-ifs_ don't really get anyone anywhere. "There was someone in here earlier."

"In the cage here?"

"Outside the cage." Steve flips around his notepad. "Recognize him?"

"Son of a _bitch,_ " Tony says, yanking the pad away from Steve. "This guy was a first year at MIT while I was getting my first doctorate. Dr. Reed Richards." Tony shakes his head. "As far as I recall he was one of the many scientists following up on Bruce's gamma radiation work. I don't know if he managed anything with that. Then there's been the other rumours—" Tony looks around, and huddles his jacket closer to him.

The cell is temperature controlled, and relatively pleasant, but Steve understands the impulse.

"Rumours?" Steve presses.

Tony wriggles for a moment, clearly unwilling to say it.

"Time travel," Steve realizes. Tony pulls a face. The consideration was nice, but Steve thinks he's starting to understand Tony Stark a little more. Like if Steve ever brought it up that Tony had been nice, Tony would deny _everything_ , and probably bitch him out for added measure.

That realization is a strange sensation. Steve thought Tony would remind him of Howard; being so sharply reminded of Bucky is something else. Something twists sharply in Steve's chest. Something he doesn't want to think of too much in the wake of already thinking _Bucky_ once.

And maybe he's not as calm on the surface as he thinks, because Tony uncurls a little from his defensive posture, and shuffles closer. He reaches out as if to touch Steve, but aborts the motion. "Hey. If this _is_ the cage we saw before and we've just been leapfrogged into the future, look at it this way. No ice." 

"Funny," Steve says. His voice is thin. His throat's closed up a little without him noticing. Stress does that. Creeps up on him without fanfare.

"And you're not alone," Tony says, level and low and serious, holding eye contact with Steve like he's some sort of wild animal that Tony's trying to communicate that he's not a threat to. 

It helps, a little, actually, but the fear is still a cold hand around Steve's throat.

"Of course, if Richards worked in gamma radiation, there are other areas of science that would correspond. Solar flares - hand wavy science but maybe there's something in it, parallel universes - but that's a whole bundle of energy issues I don't wanna think about - we're talking exploding planets kind of energy for that ball game, even badly programmed nanobots—Any of those are an explanation I'd snaffle up in a heartbeat for our current situation. Ugh."

Tony's last _ugh_ makes Steve tense. " _Ugh_?"

"My teachers used to use _situation_ as an allegory for pregnancy," Tony says. "Post-traumatic school flashback."

"You're ridiculous," Steve tells him.

"You don't have to deflate my ego. Agent Hill does that pretty well for me without your help." Tony's dark eyes flit around the location, looking for escape, probably. Steve doesn't have to look again. His memory's amazing like that. "I think I'm scheduled into her dayplanner. 10am. Call Tony and insult his hair. 4pm. Call Tony and make some reference to his inability to commit to anything regarding actual human interaction."

"Of course, this could just be a different floor of the Triskelion," Steve offers. It's a practical solution, so it should be the option he more _wants_ to be true, but he doesn't believe it.

Tony's wrinkled expression tells him all he needs to know about Tony's opinion on the subject. Steve snatches his sketchbook back, and that seems to kickstart Tony into action — patting down his own pockets, seeing what's left.

Something in an inner pocket seems to reassure Tony, but he doesn't reveal what it is, and something in an outer pocket makes him smile. He pulls his hand out of that pocket to reveal—

"I don't think bad guys take American Express," Steve tells him.

"Okay, smartass, what _else_ can cards be used for," Tony says, twisting the card in between his fingers, like Steve once saw a magician dexterously move playing cards.

"Cocaine?"

" _Cocaine_. Someone's been showing you all the wrong movies since you woke up, Cappleberry." Tony turns the card to portrait, and uses it to lever up the edges of one of the tiles beneath them.

"Ah," Steve says, wrinkling his nose at the newest nickname. "Breaking and entering."

"In this case," Tony says, "hopefully breaking and _leaving_." He wiggles the card a few times. "This place looks enough like the Hulk cage that if we pull here—"

"Sshh," Steve says.

"Hey, I'm loquacious, it's in my file, you're the quiet one, _you_ sshh—" 

Steve raises both eyebrows. Tony scowls, falls silent, and then realizes why as the door opens. Steve turns to face the door, getting immediately and gracefully to his feet, as two men wearing close-fitting black uniforms and black balaclavas enter the room.

"Hey," Steve says, as forcefully as he can manage, "we're American citizens. You can't do this. Let us go and —" He squints, shuffles, redistributes his weight, and awkwardly tries. "Take us to your leader?"

"Nice," Tony whispers.

The two men blatantly ignore him. As they come closer, Steve can see the tray of food they're carrying — two small bottles of water, and what might be bread and cheese — and he can also see the weapons on their belts. Two guns, one that looks like the tranquilizer guns that took down Tony and himself, and one that looks more like some sort of service pistol; Steve can't tell the specific type from here, even though he's up-to-date with current gun manufacturers.

They set the tray down on the long rectangular block that is half outside the cage, half in, press a few buttons, and the tray descends into the block. A few clicking noises later, and the tray launches upwards through a flap that is too fast for Steve to block open, even though he tries. The tray lurches and spills to the floor.

As Steve turns back to the men, they're already retreating out of the door. 

"Wait!" Steve yells, desperate. "You've got to let us out of here—"

They're not responding to him.

"At least let us to talk to Dr. Reed Richards," Tony calls out. He's standing beside Steve now, his elbow bent at a weird angle so he can rub at his neck where the dart went in, but his eyes are locked onto the men in balaclavas, and they freeze for a moment and look back at them, warily. "Please," Tony adds. One of the men flinches, and the other shakes his head, and they both leave the room.

"Damn," Tony breathes as the door closes. He casts a wary eye at the food on the floor, and then sits back down onto the ground in a fluid, weary motion. Steve stands, not knowing what to do. He hates not having a plan.

Steve prods uneasily at the mechanism which allowed the food in. It should be a weak point in the design. When he turns back to Tony, to voice that, Tony's used one of his credit cards to lever a panel off the floor.

Underneath is a whole mess of wires that Tony makes a satisfied noise at and starts pulling apart.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Steve asks, automatically.

Tony gives him a _please, you're being ridiculous_ look which makes Steve have to fight an embarrassed blush, because Tony's obscene wealth isn't all from Howard Stark — Tony's a technological genius. Of course Tony knows what he's doing.

Steve alternates between watching Tony's fingers move deftly in the mechanism, and eyeballing the door in case they get more visitors.

"Damn," Tony says, under his breath, and halts for a moment, his head bowed over the hole in the floor. "I need something smaller." His hands move to the inner pocket he touched earlier, and there's a brief tremble in Tony's fingers before he pulls out a small object.

Steve gets a glimpse of golden chain, and his throat goes dry. He thinks he knows what it is.

The last time he saw that watch, it had been Howard Stark slipping it from his pocket.

Tony takes a long moment before he says something. "This watch is—" Tony's steadfastly not looking at Steve, a neon sign that this is a painful topic. " _Was_ —"

"Your father's," Steve says, letting himself think of the last time he saw it. Howard Stark and time seemed to, like a lot of things in his life, have a fast and loose relationship. But whenever any part of the Project: Rebirth equipment had needed timing, there Howard was, frowning down at his pocket watch.

The watch looks worse for wear now, the face fractured at the bottom right. It doesn't even look like the watch is even working. Something clenches in Steve's chest. He knows Howard is dead now. He read Tony's file cover-to-cover, mostly in appalled disbelief at the time, although reading about Howard's car accident had in some way been just like war. How you could be next to someone one moment, and they were gone the next.

"Right," Tony says, an indecipherable note in his voice. "I guess you used to know him." Tony refuses to look up and maintain eye contact; this is another of those _deciphering Tony Stark_ clues, because Tony is all about challenging authority, and that mostly involves glaring at Steve a whole bunch, so avoiding eye contact is less of a tiny clue and more of a giant clue truck that smashes into you to spell out _Howard Stark is a sore subject._

"After a fashion," Steve mutters, and Tony does look up, more curious than anything. Maybe Steve had aimed for a mutter and hit a grunt. "We didn't really get on," Steve adds, awkwardly. Tony's file had mentioned his relationship with his father was strained, so perhaps the truth is best for the moment. "I kinda thought he was a dick."

An involuntary smile splinters Tony's face for a moment. "Like father like son, huh?"

"I _definitely_ had a worse first impression of your father."

"Ouch," Tony says, levering the back off the watch, and carefully unscrewing the mechanism as best as he can. "Poor pops. I've been _glared_ at by tall, handsome, American and suddenly dad's nervousness makes a whole lot more sense."

Steve mouths, _tall, handsome, American_ and Tony points at him. Steve flushes. "I'm not—" Tony's expression turns into distinct disbelief. "Fine," he grits out. "But I didn't _glare_." Tony huffs under his breath, and uses some of the small watch parts to join some of the wires in the floor beneath them together. "I may have ground my teeth at him a little."

" _So_ much sense," Tony says, then reaches down into the wires, tightens something, and then he looks up expectantly at where the cage doors presumably are. "Huh. That should have worked." He makes a sound of disgruntlement, not disappointment. Like he's annoyed at _himself_ for it not working.

"It's because you're working on the premise that all the power is located in this room. There's a parallel unit on the opposite side of the cage that will help you bypass the conduit and link straight up to the locking mechanism."

Tony and Steve startle in unison, and look up to see a single figure standing in front of the cage. He's either super quiet, or trying to break out distracted them both; Steve didn't hear him approach at all, and he feels abruptly like a failure for missing it.

"Dr. Reed Richards, I presume," Steve says as politely as he can manage considering they're still _in a cage_. He takes in the tall figure as both he and Tony get to their feet defensively. Richards looks like he's a little worse for wear — there's a matching silver streak shooting through his hair at both his temples, his figure is angles under a sweeping lab coat that's clearly two sizes too big for him, and his face looks oddly gaunt.

"You've never met me before?" Richards asks, one dark eyebrow quirking upwards. "That's interesting."

"Yeah," Tony says. "Super fascinating, frabjous joy, et cetera. Why are you telling me how to break out of here? Because I gotta tell you, people don't tend to be _accidentally_ put in prisons that can survive a nuke."

"It's because," a smooth, familiar voice says from behind Richards, "you should never have been thrown in here in the first place. It was a mistake. We apologize."

Steve tenses. His entire body feels frozen, and yeah, that's a sensation he will always have too much familiarity with. But that _voice_. It sends a chill down Steve's spine worse than the time the Red Skull faced him down over fire and chaos and peeled his face off before him.

And then two figures step out either side of Dr. Reed Richards, and Steve's suddenly aware that he's never really going to understand anything ever again. Because flanking Richards is an _impossibility_.

"Ah," Tony says from beside him. "I guess we landed in an alternate reality, then."

"I can see that," Steve says, staring at their identical doubles.

* * *

Their alternate selves, or _Stark and Rogers_ as Steve mentally dubs them, because otherwise this whole thing could elevate to a level of confusion that makes breathing difficult, are not as identical as they seem on first glance.

Stark's hair is slightly different to Tony's, it's longer, and there's more of a slouch in Stark's posture. Stark, like Tony, is wearing a suit, but it looks more rumpled. 

Rogers... well, Steve hasn't looked in a mirror lately, but Rogers seems more physically exact to him. His hair is much more lacquered down, and he's wearing a version of the uniform Steve uses only when he's doing undercover work — dark blue with a white star and white stripes.

It's _beyond_ weird. And Steve's saved the world with a man who turns green and grows really big when he gets angry. He likes to think he has the experience to know weird when he sees it.

Rogers lets them out of the cell, typing in a long code to a panel. He is staring at them, assessing, but Steve doesn't blame him, because he's kind of staring back.

Steve should never think that he's seen all the weirdness that this brave new world has to offer, because he's getting weary of being almost continually surprised. Behind him, Tony scoops up the small parts of his watch, and pockets them again. 

"We should take them to the briefing room," Stark says.

It's the first time Steve's heard Tony's alternate speak, and there's an almost shyness in Stark's voice that he's never heard in Tony's voice. There's something about it which sends a chill down Steve's spine, and it curls into a resolve: these people might _look_ like them, but it would be a mistake to think they _are_ them.

For one, Steve doesn't think he would throw _his_ alternate self into a Hulk-proof cell, although now he's wondering if there's an alternate reality out there where he _is_ the Hulk. Bruce Banner's work, after all, was one of the main tail-off programs from Project: Rebirth. Maybe on one planet Earth, the serum made Steve into the Hulk.

He mentally pictures it. He wonders if he would have been green, or if his skin could have been somehow programmed to turn into the stars and stripes.

This whole alternate reality business has always destroyed his mind. He wonders if Tony thinks he'll be a dunce on the subject, but that's what people always forget — he's from the _dawn_ of pulp science-fiction. Steve's quite aware of all the concepts — time travel, alternate realities, planets, aliens, telepathy, mutation. He fought HYDRA for _years,_ and they weren't averse to magical weaponry. Steve knows about this stuff, and has opinions on it too, but it does usually tend to give him a massive migraine if he thinks about it too long.

Like the time he tried to get his head around the concept of infinity.

Steve keeps a mental map in his head as they leave the cage, and Stark sort of shepherds them towards what must be the briefing room. As far as he can tell, it has the same layout as the Triskelion. He's tense, and Tony — at his side — is checking out their surroundings as much as Steve is.

There's nothing about this scenario which tells Steve that they're _not_ still in terrible danger. A thought which magnifies when they pass at least four patrols of guards, ten in each, and none of _them_ are the ones that subdued them. There's people on this base, and they're all carrying weapons.

Tony enters the briefing room first, and he inhales, sharply, which makes Steve hurry to join him, everything tensed ready for a fight, but instead, he just sees a familiar sight — Pepper Potts, setting out files around a long, white table.

"How did you—" Tony blurts, and Pepper looks up, an expression of blank confusion on her face. "Oh," he adds, redundantly, and his face goes expressionless.

"Not our Pepper?" Steve guesses in a whisper.

"A realization fully punctuated by the lack of disappointment on her face when she saw me," Tony mutters. "Never actually realised I'd be disappointed _not_ to see her look at me like that."

"Another set of alternates, sir?" Pepper asks, over the top of their heads. Behind them, Stark and Rogers enter the room.

"Sit," Stark says, in his shy, not-Tony voice. "You're not prisoners. You're guests."

"This has happened before?" Steve questions, decidedly _not_ sitting, because from where he's standing, guests don't get thrown into Hulk-proof cells and not given a damn explanation.

"Happens a lot," Stark says, shrugging. "We're working on it. As far as we can figure, it's just something in the Triskelion design. You're the... ninth duplicates we've had this year. You show up, and then a week later, _poof_." He makes a weak gesture with his fingers.

Rogers moves in close to Stark, and puts an invasive hand on Stark's elbow, looking at him. "We don't want to overwhelm them," Rogers says. Which is clearly, _shut up, you've said more than enough_. Steve's used that glare a lot in his life, so it's as clear as saying it out loud to him. Maybe there's an _advantage_ to being someone's doppelganger from an alternate reality after all.

It's decidedly weird to be stood opposite a table to their identical selves, and it's almost a stalemate for a long moment. Keeping his breathing steady, Steve slowly pulls out a chair to sit down in it, because _something_ has to stop this tense moment from becoming hostile.

Tony follows his cue, and thankfully so do their doubles, taking seats opposite them. It's only when Stark and Rogers are fully seated that Steve feels like he can take a longer exhale. "So the Triskelion," Tony says, gesturing with one hand at the walls. "You decided it would be a viable base in the end, huh?"

Steve watches Rogers carefully, not liking the way his double is tracking Tony's hand movement. He already dislikes his alternate self, which is a little weird, because Steve's _always_ been able to like himself. That started early in his life, when he stood up to bullies he had no chance of toppling. 

"We didn't really have a choice," Stark says, drumming his fingers on the table nervously. It's not a tic that Steve's noticed Tony having.

Rogers gives Stark an angry look at that comment. Steve's alternate self is paranoid, which means he's hiding something. It stands to reason. Until Steve knows what exactly is going on in this place, he'll probably be hiding _everything,_ and...

...maybe the paranoia is just a universal trait.

"It's nicer than our Triskelion," Tony says, pursing his lips and looking around at the neat white walls and the bright, humming lights. "Ours is dirty and grey and half-broken. Oh, and then there's the rats."

"We had rats too," Stark says. "We got rid of them."

Steve flickers a look at his alternate self, sitting there with no emotion on his face. That's just wrong. Steve's usually an open book. There's never a point hiding how you feel, unless it's a life-or-death situation and you need to chivvy on a fellow soldier by pretending a situation is not as gloomy or fatal as it looks. Nope. If Rogers' expression is blank, then there's a ton more bad things going on here than they're letting on.

"Are you sure you got rid of all the rats?" Steve asks, keeping his voice polite and his eyes trained on himself.

Rogers' mouth quirks, just a little, just at the side, into an _almost_ smile.

"Man, your Steve does that passive-aggressive threat stuff too?" Stark whines. His eyes are wider than Tony's, his face slacker. He's definitely Tony Stark in some form, but he's definitely not Tony. This whole thing is bizarre.

" _My_ Steve," Tony repeats under his breath, frowning at the phrasing. "I guess you have some theories about how this alternate reality jumping is happening?"

"You, me, eight other _us_ , and Dr. Richards," Stark says. "Maybe you want to join in?"

"Sure," Tony says. "Would be nice to see the labs in this place in action, too. See if this place really _is_ suitable for our Avengers."

"Avengers?" Rogers asks, much too quickly, his eyes flitting between Steve and Tony. He exhales the word, like he's never heard it before.

"Oh," Steve butts in, lying smoothly before Tony can speak, "uh, maybe you still call it by what we used to. Special Forces?" He smiles as politely as he can manage. "Our new president wanted something snappier to boost world morale."

"Avengers," Stark repeats, mulling the word over. "I like it."

Tony gives Steve another inscrutable look, but he doesn't fight him on it, and something low in Steve warms. Tony trusts him. Of course, they may still be on the battlefield. Just a... really odd one.

"Until you return home, you're our guests," Rogers says. "We don't have much spare room, but we do have available guest quarters. I'll be happy to show you to them after this briefing."

"Briefing," Steve repeats, warily. 

"Just a preliminary thing," Rogers says, now smiling. One of the big, fake, sarcastic smiles that Steve uses when he's trying to convince whoever's in charge that yep, sure, of _course_ he plans on following orders directly to the letter. "We've found it's helped the research we have so far on this alternate reality phenomena to track some of the key differences in our history, see just _how_ off the beaten path our realities are, et cetera. It's nothing—"

He's not able to complete his lie, because Pepper — curious, alternate reality Pepper who isn't frowning at Tony, but is still making him shift uncomfortably in his seat — comes in.

"There's a call for you, Commander Stark," she says, and her eyes dart between Stark and Tony almost skittishly.

" _Commander Stark,_ " Tony repeats, sounding impressed as he leans in closer to Steve. "Does that mean I outrank you in this little mirrorverse, Cap?"

Steve narrows his eyes and tries not to bristle. As usual, he can't quite fully hide it.

Rogers is the one to query her. "Is it urgent?" 

Pepper's eyes flicker over to Tony and Steve again, before snapping back to Rogers. "It's about the outside, Commander."

"Steve-o here's also a Commander," Tony mimics quietly, overly enjoying this, grinning and waggling his eyebrows. "Guess your mirrorverse buddy got promoted before you too, huh, Cap?"

"I'll be right there," Rogers promises her, his lips curling a little in Steve's direction — despite Tony being quiet, he was listening in. Steve hadn't realised his own face could look quite so cold. 

And then his brain snaps in. The call had been for Commander _Stark,_ so why is it _his_ alternate self that's promising to go?

Steve feels abruptly strange. Why would his alternate self have Tony's surname? The identical appearance suggests the same parentage. Maybe Howard Stark adopted him, or something. That's really _weird_. 

When Steve side-glances to get Tony's opinion on the subject, Tony's looking a little constipated. He's probably reached the same conclusion.

"Just one side-order of business and I'll be right through," Rogers tells Pepper.

Pepper nods, and backs out of the room, quiet and precise despite her five-inch heels. It seems like Pepper Potts' ability to walk in ridiculously high shoes transcends realities.

Rogers nods at Tony and Steve. "Please excuse me. Tony can fill you in as well as I can." He pulls out of his seat, and moves to go, and Steve's wondering about the _side-order of business_ when Rogers leans in close to Stark. _Really_ close.

Stark looks at him, wide-eyed, but not obviously surprised at this intrusion into his personal space. Man, Steve's alternate self is a little bit of a _dick_.

"What words and phrases are you forbidden from saying?" Rogers prompts in a light tone.

Steve freezes. Here it is. A clue as to what his alternate self (Commander _Stark,_ his brain is supplying, and Tony is never going to let him live that one down) is hiding. 

He's hiding _something_. _Definitely_.

"Threesome," Stark says, rolling his eyes like he's the lead in one of those soppy, sentimental films that Bruce seems to like so much. "Foursome. _Moresome_. And..." Stark squints. "He has identical DNA so it's not cheating on my marriage vows."

Steve frowns. What the hell is going on? He turns to Tony, but Tony's cheeks have gone a bit pink, and his body language is spiralling to hell — he's leaning away from Steve, and he's folded his arms across his chest defensively. 

"I'm also not allowed to say," Stark says, petulance drenching his tone, "that _it is practically masturbation._ " 

Tony does turn to Steve then, his mouth pursed together as Rogers sweeps out of the room. Then Tony shrugs and says, "You know, it practically _would_ be."

Steve takes a moment to think it through. And then his stomach sinks, when his brain catches up. The masturbation part is pure Tony Stark, and of _course_ someone with his ego would want to have sex with himself if he could, so two of them in one building _had_ to be enticing, but the rest of it? Commander _Stark_ and _marriage vows_ and _threesome_ and—

Oh. Oh.

_Oh._

"I'm guessing you two aren't married in your universe, then," Stark says, and Steve's resolve is sunk. He can feel the heat in his cheeks and he abruptly, suddenly, does not care a bit. Tony can tease him all he _likes_.

Because in this universe, they're _married_. Steve can see it now, the wedding ring on Stark's hand. 

"Are you even together?" Stark tilts his head. "Huh. That's a first."

"That's a..." Steve finds it hard to make his mouth make the word. He's finding it hard not just to make incoherent gurgles. He sort of wants to shake the room up and find the hidden cameras. This has to be some sort of bizarre prank after all, right? "Why is it a first?"

"All the other Steve and Tony's we've met have been together," Stark says. He seems to be having no trouble at all forming human words. Beside him, _thankfully_ , the usually talkative Tony Stark, (and can he think of him as _his_ Tony now without feeling a little weird?) is uncharacteristically quiet.

"No, uh," Steve says, and he rubs the back of his neck. "Uh, we're not. We've barely even _met_ , really. It's—" He makes the mistake of looking to his right, and his cheeks colour again. _All the other Steve and Tony's,_ Steve's brain provides, and it's short-circuiting his brain pretty damn badly. 

"Perhaps it's a matter of time," Stark says, and Tony does react to that, a weird sort of inhalation which sounds like his breath has gotten stuck halfway through. Steve empathizes. Thoroughly. "Speaking of, what time is it?" Stark digs in his inner pocket, and pulls out—

Howard Stark's pocket watch. Of _course_. But Stark's version is whole, unbroken. Steve looks to gauge Tony's reaction (something he feels like he's _always_ been doing since waking up here) and Tony's silent and suspiciously wet-eyed.

"Back," Rogers says from the doorway. Stark pockets his watch.

"It's late, Steve," Stark says, touching Rogers on the elbow. It's a gentle touch, a gesture laced with casual familiarity. This intimacy isn't natural to them, it's something that's come through time. Time _together._ Steve's mouth feels a little dry. "How about you show them to the guest quarters and we can do the briefing tomorrow?"

"I wanted to get them to the doctor, too," Rogers says, his voice rumbling like he's trying too hard to keep it quiet and light. "Our guards knocked them out."

"None of our mirror selves have been here less than a week," Stark says, insistently. "I'm sure that can wait."

"Sure," Rogers says, turning away from Stark and looking over to Steve and Tony. His jaw is tense. There's something he wants to say but can't, and Steve wishes he knew what it was. "I'll show you to the guest quarters. I'm sure you must be tired. Follow me."

Rogers leads them up one floor, picking up two guards as they exit the briefing room, and taking them up an elevator that doesn't even exist in their version of reality.

"There's so much space up here," Tony says, looking around as they exit the elevator. "I wonder if we can convince Fury to let us install a couple more floors like this."

Rogers draws up outside a door that looks identical to all the others they passed. Steve counted them anyway — they're fifteen rooms down to the right of the elevator. 

"There's night clothes on the bed. If you give your current clothes to the guards, I'll have them washed and returned for you in the morning. There'll be someone coming along with some dinner, if you wish, seeing as a little bird tells me you didn't have the food we provided earlier."

He palms a panel, and the door opens. Steve can see the corner of a bland-looking apartment — the edge of a table, the side of a bed — but he doesn't make a move as of yet to go in, even though Tony does.

"I didn't know if it was poisoned or not," Steve explains. "And you got us out before we _needed_ to eat."

"I promise you, the food here's not poisoned," Rogers says, rolling his eyes. Steve frowns. "Stop being so paranoid, uh, me," Rogers continues. "If I wanted you dead, I would have had you shot earlier when you were unconscious and drooling into the tiles."

"Mm," Tony says from inside the apartment, " _there's_ a sexy mental image."

Rogers startles into a laugh, and Tony turns, smiling at him, showing bright white teeth that are slightly clenched. _That's his fake for-the-press smile,_ Steve thinks, and wonders if Rogers knows that.

"I guess we'll, uh," Steve says eloquently, gesturing at the apartment.

"If you need anything, ask the guards," Rogers says.

"Right," Steve says, blankly. He tenses, and wonders if now is the best time to push his luck. He could probably overpower himself — or at least neutralize him as a threat — but the two guards have at least two weapons on them. He would need Tony on board with such a plan for it to succeed. But then where would they go? And if they were caught causing trouble, then they would lose any chance they had of _finding_ a way out. Right now, his priority is to protect Tony and make their _best_ chance of escape. If he complies with Rogers, then maybe Rogers won't expect it when Steve does make his move.

"I'll see you in the morning," Rogers says, and then he leans in, just so Steve can hear, his even, white teeth showing in his widest smile when he says, "Best not to go wandering. I know what a _meddler_ I am. If you were to, say, ask for permission to explore, I don't think it'd be granted, if you understand me."

"Oh," Steve says, keeping his voice cool, and mirroring the cruel angle of the smile. "I think we're somehow on the same wavelength."

"Good night," Rogers says, raising his voice so Tony can hear it too, and stalking off. The door shuts behind him. It's a final sort of sound.

"I don't like this," Steve mutters, stepping into the room, and glancing around the walls for any sign of weakness. He can't see anything straight away. Maybe the floor panels lift up, like in the cage.

"No kidding," Tony says, and nods his head at the bed.

Singular.

"Oh," Steve says, again. "Oh. It was their Tony who knew we weren't— their Steve must have assumed—" He can't finish the sentence. His cheeks want to burn again, but he is stubborn with the sensation, not letting it flourish. "I can ask the guards—"

"Your mirror self wasn't as quiet as he thought he was, I heard the threat," Tony says, picking up one of the sets of clothing from the end of the bed and pulling a face at the plain white pants and t-shirt. He starts shucking off his jacket, folding it and placing it on top of the set of drawers.

"What are you doing?" Steve asks.

Tony looks at him askance, sighs when he realizes Steve's not moving, and beckons him over in a low-handed gesture. Feeling terribly self-conscious, Steve edges over. 

"I'm playing along," Tony mutters, keeping his head down low. "You gotta know it's our best shot. Something doesn't sit right. Your double's a control freak, mine's a pushover—Something is totally up in bizarro world, and we're going to figure out what it is and how to get out of here..."

"We've got to play the game," Steve sighs, and picks up his own set of white pyjamas. They look his size, at least. He keeps his back turned, and tries to dress quickly. Every movement is magnified, especially the rustle of Tony's clothing from the other side of the room.

He's hit by an urge to look, and while Steve's mutinously thinking _just to check he's safe,_ there's a curiosity in there too. Something he's somewhat sure wasn't in his head to start with, but is now niggling away a little.

Keeping his head turned, and keeping his eyes to himself, and surviving this _thing_ is his best option at getting out of here with them both alive and okay and fully intact.

And _intact_ is what he's thinking right at the moment he sees the red mark three inches above his elbow.

"Okay," Steve says, "that's new."

"It's called a penis and every dude has one," Tony says cheerfully from behind him. "Try not to shout and wave it about."

"That's the punchline from a limerick about finding a dead mouse in your stew," Steve says, and awkwardly adds, "and I wasn't talking about my penis."

When he turns around, Tony's dressed in the pyjamas too. He should look a mess — they're too big for his frame — but he doesn't. Steve tries not to think about his slightly too-short t-shirt. He doesn't want to think what he looks like in these ridiculous clothes. Why are they playing along again?

Oh. Yeah. Survival. _That_.

"I thought most limericks _were_ jokes about dicks," Tony says, "you know, there once was a young man called Jock who had an incredible—"

" _Anyway,_ " Steve says, heavily, holding up his forearm and trying very hard—uh—not to think about penises. "I didn't have this mark earlier."

Tony looks at the red mark on Steve's arm, and swears. 

"Can we make an official Avengers protocol about how I don't like it when the smartest person in the room swears?" Steve asks.

"I've got one too," Tony says, rubbing at his arm. "And yes, I'm still talking about penises." 

Steve wonders about scowling, but apparently just _thinking_ about it is enough.

"And I have one of those marks," Tony says, shifting closer to show his arm. "They're hypodermic marks. We've been injected with something."

"You've got more than I do," Steve says, taking hold of Tony's arm. Tony blinks at Steve, like he's surprised by the contact.

"Uh, yeah," Tony says, and rubs awkwardly at his neck with his other hand, self-consciously, "I was working on the—" He looks up for a moment, like there might be cameras. "On a remote controlled piece of equipment." 

"I read about that," Steve says, following Tony's eye movements. There's no camera visible, but that doesn't mean there's no camera there.

"I took them out," Tony says, "but they leave a scar." He goes from rubbing his neck to absent-mindedly rubbing at his chest, looking lost for a moment. Then he squints at Steve. "Talking about penises..."

Steve stares. _What_ , his brain provides, helpfully.

Tony shrugs awkwardly. "We gotta check everywhere. Just in case."

"Oh," Steve says, because eloquence isn't his forte, and they both check themselves out as far as possible, but as it's not going to be possible to check out his own back, he strips first. "Check me over?"

The fact that Tony just says "Yeah", and doesn't make a witty comeback, should speak volumes — but if it does, Steve does know what it's saying. After a moment, Tony says, voice thick, "You're fine."

Steve quickly redresses, and turns in time to see Tony drop his pants and _wiggle_ at him.

"I'm fine too, if you get my drift," Tony says, all bravado and fake courage which Steve might be tempted to call him out too, but as he's hugging his t-shirt to his chest, and his back muscles — facing Steve — are tense with worry, Steve doesn't.

"You're good," Steve says tersely, turning around and staring at the wall. He tries to press on the wall tiles a few times because that's who he is, he wants to escape, but this room is almost as impenetrable as the cage. He wonders if the Triskelion is this robust in _their_ version of reality.

By the time he turns back around, Tony's dressed, but he hasn't made any move towards the bed. Steve's not sure what time it is, but it does feel late. 

Tony tugs at the plain bedclothes that they've been provided with, pulling the thin material away from himself and letting it drop. He pulls a face. "I don't know why we bothered getting re-dressed in this stupid things, I still feel naked in them," he complains.

"I always feel naked without my shield," Steve says, avoiding the big elephant in the room which as _one bed, two people who do not get on_ is not going to be avoidable for very much longer. Let alone the _two people who are apparently married in maybe nine realities_ thing.

Tony just eyeballs him oddly for a second. Steve shifts uncomfortably, definitely feeling naked right now and hating it.

Mostly, he hates that he couldn't stop them getting knocked out at the beginning of all of this. He's supposed to be able to save people, protect the Earth. How can he do that if he can't even save one person?

"I'm just never going to look at you when you're out of uniform the same way again, my man," is Tony's only comment to him. Steve thinks about Rogers and Stark, and their moment of intimacy, and thinks the 'not seeing each other in the same way' ship has already sailed.

Food is delivered then, and it's simple — just a couple of bowls of macaroni cheese. Steve counts the ways he can stop the two guards — strangle one, kick out the other — and swallows it down. Defeating these two means nothing. There are definitely over forty other guards with weapons in this place, at _least_. Steve needs to hold back until he _knows_ he can get them out.

He has to keep repeating it to himself, or he'll forget. He's never taken being held hostage with any nod towards appropriate behavior.

They eat in silence, and leave the bowls on the table. The silence is pretty uncomfortable, and Steve thinks of a thousand things to say, all of them ridiculous. And then he worries about the room being bugged, or there being cameras, and from the way Tony's eyes skirt the corners of the room, he's thinking the same thing.

"I don't suppose—" Steve starts, at one point, gesturing towards the floor.

Tony just shakes his head. "This is the kind of flooring you can't lever up, even if they'd given us metal spoons." He flicks the plastic spoon they'd been given with a sign, and then his dark eyes linger on the bed for a moment too long.

"I can sleep on the floor," Steve offers.

Tony shakes his head, and ducks his head in close. "Bizarro Steve doesn't know what Bizarro Tony does. At least yet. If he thinks we're just like all the other.... _versions of us_ — Of course, that depends if he's telling the truth— We could be lying on a graveyard of multiple Tonys and Steves— And you can't _accidentally_ traverse dimensions, there has to be a Einstein-Rosen bridge involved somewhere, and the power for that—"

Okay, Steve would have appreciated if any of those sentences had been completed, but Steve's pretty sure he's got the gist of it. "Act like we're just like the rest, don't stand out," Steve nods. "Got it."

There's a sink in the corner, a small one which Steve eyeballs viciously, like he can tear it apart in his mind. It has small wrapped up toothbrushes and toothpaste, like they're at a hotel. The toothpaste tastes like baking soda, which is an odd choice for somewhere as high-tech looking at this — everywhere Steve's gone, the toothpaste is creamy, frothy, mint stuff in a thousand different, unnecessary varieties. This stuff is old-school. Steve likes it. Tony pulls a face as he spits it out, and then finds a light switch which plunges the whole room into near-darkness. Light leaks through the door, casting the edges of the room into a blue pallor.

It's definitely awkward climbing into bed with Tony Stark. Especially with the thought of their alternate selves ( _married_ ) unavoidably in his mind. Sure, he doesn't so much get on with Tony in day-to-day life, but that's because they barely know each other. In uniform, they work seamlessly. It's not as far of a stretch to think that camaraderie could pass over to their civilian life. He lies rigidly on his back, staring up at the ceiling, beyond uncomfortable despite the softness of the mattress.

It's a foam mattress, so there's no real hope in digging out springs to use as a makeshift weapon.

Beside him, Tony's lying in much the same way, shoulders drawn into his body. The pyjamas are thin, so thin that Steve would have thought he could see the glow of Tony's arc reactor, but there's nothing there. Maybe he's learned how to dim the light of it at night, or something. Steve steadfastly doesn't mention it. He's pretty sure people don't like their wounds pointing out.

"We're going to be okay," Steve says. He thinks he can feel Tony's eyes on him, but he doesn't want to look to make sure. The billionaire's head is just one pillow away, and that already feels much too close. "I'll get us out."

"Outside," Tony says, in a quoting voice, in the same way Pepper had said that to 'Commander Stark' (and, nope, Steve's not getting over that any time soon at all.)

"I'll get us _home_ ," Steve corrects, although he can hear his own voice and he's not all that convincing.

"Wherever _that_ is," Tony mutters, voicing exactly what Steve's actually thinking.

None of them have a home, not any more. Maybe that's what becoming an Avenger does. Strips everything away.

That's about their exchange done for the night. Tony falls asleep before Steve does. Steve lies there and listens as Tony's breaths level out. He counts the last of Tony's conscious breaths, and then he starts counting something else.

Namely: time and the number of times he sees the shadows shifting through the small gap beneath the door. Steve stays awake a long time, enough time to establish a change of the guards every two hours, and a walking patrol of at least eight guards punctuating the period inbetween at different intervals no longer than twenty minutes each. 

He counts, and counts, hoping beyond hope that tomorrow will bring more answers, and more opportunities to escape. Because something about this whole place doesn't sit right with Steve, and he'll find out what it is. He _knows_ he will. For that, he needs to rest a little, so he's at his best to take the most of any opportunities they find, so he closes his eyes and tries to match Tony's sleeping breathing pattern.

If he wishes to be back in _their_ reality when he opens his eyes next, it's a wish he keeps firmly to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

He's not back in their reality when he wakes up.

No, this is the furthest away from _any_ sort of reality that Steve's ever found himself in. Because he seems to have woken up _cuddling Tony Stark._

"Nngh," Steve says, and nearly falls off the bed pulling away from Tony.

"You're awake now, huh?" Tony pushes himself up on his hands, and rubs at his forehead.

"Sorry," Steve says, feeling incredibly weird. Cuddling against Tony Stark, as insane as the concept probably is, actually was pretty damn comfortable. It is an appalling secret Steve that will take to his _grave_. "I didn't mean to—"

"No harm, no foul," Tony interrupts, but doesn't quite look Steve in the eye when he says it.

 _Crap_ , Steve thinks. He's never shared a bed with anyone, so it must have just been natural to gravitate to the heat source. He tries to remember what he might have been dreaming about, and gets a mental flash or two of ice.

His body goes cold, and he turns away from Tony so he doesn't have to see his expression. Steve and ice are not a winning combination.

Their clothes are waiting for them on the table, at least, it _looks_ like their clothes. Steve briefly washes and dresses while Tony averts his eyes, messing with his broken watch on the bed while Steve bends self-consciously over the small sink. When it's Tony's turn, Steve stares at the corner of the room.

"The other Tony came in half an hour ago," Tony says, turning around from the sink and pulling his jacket back on, sliding the watch into the inner pocket. "Said we can leave at any time, but that we'd be 'escorted _'_ to the mess."

"Right," Steve says. "Because we're not prisoners, we're guests."

Tony's shrug is stiff. Steve's sarcasm is loaded, and fills up the small room. Steve gets the attention of the guards before he blurts out an apology for being too hands-on in the bed. He's kind of getting the feeling it's the last sort of thing Tony wants to have an actual conversation about.

Steve counts rooms as they're moved to a set of stairs leading downwards, and they pass the room they were tranquilised in front of as the guards silently take them to the mess for breakfast. Steve's glad the room is relatively close to their quarters, even if it's downstairs, because whatever transported them here _had_ to be either in that room or close to it. He's not particularly sure of modern-day science, but it's the only explanation that makes sense to him.

The cafeteria is a large space filled with white trestle tables and low white benches. Steve swallows. There's clearly enough space for five hundred people in here. More if people didn't mind bumping elbows. Worse, there seems to be about two hundred guards in here, all in similar dark gray uniforms, all edging funny glances at the doorway as they're escorted to the food line.

Two hundred guards. Steve's good, but he got undone yesterday with only seven. They seriously need a solid plan if they're going to get out of here under their own steam.

The breakfast is reassuringly bland — some sort of gruel and a spoonful of tinned peaches — and their two escorting guards sit opposite them, scowling as they eat. Tony eats without complaint, which almost surprises Steve for a second — it has to be a league away from the restaurant-style food he's probably used to — but then, maybe bland food is a nice contrast.

Or maybe Tony's just too distracted by what's going on to care about what he's eating.

Or maybe, by now, he's just so used to being kidnapped.

It's Stark that comes to find him, and as he sits down next down to Tony on the bench, Steve internally laughs at how wrong he was about how identical they are, because Stark... is just nothing like Tony. He smiles easily. He laughs as Tony calls their escorts 'Dumb and Dumber'. Stark is...

...somehow completely emotionally un-constipated.

Huh.

"So we're gonna go look at all this science gobbledegook," Stark says, leaning over Tony's tray and smiling openly at Steve. "You wanna come with, or would you rather go see Dr. Richards? Most of the other Steves do that, have a look at the files of the alternate alternates."

"Mm, if we split up we might see more," Tony says under his breath. 

Steve nods. 

"You boys can drop the, uh," Stark squints. "Sorry, this thing never gets easier. Uh. You can walk my husband's, uh, twin to Dr. Richards' office, right?"

Dumb and Dumber nod. 

"Steve wants us to have dinner together in our quarters tonight," Stark says, as Steve gets up off the bench. "I'll send someone to fetch you when it's time."

"Right," Steve says, coolly looking down at Stark. "Just to, like, show me the way because I'm a guest not a prisoner."

Stark flushes a little, and tries to nod, but Steve rolls up his sleeve pointedly. Stark goes from red to pale in a _second_. "Sorry about that," he says, looking between Steve and Tony, and he tugs at the neck of his shirt to show a similar red mark on his shoulder. "Tracking chips. We all have them. When the guards found you without them, they'll have automatically injected you. They're not permanent. Just a precaution."

"And I suppose if we asked for them to be removed?" Steve asks, trailing off pointedly.

Stark flushes again. He really _isn't_ backwards at showing his emotions. It's almost surreal seeing that spread of _feeling_ on Tony Stark's face. He squirms a little. "Probably not," he says, and actually toes the ground a little, and Steve gets it: it's not up to him. Probably nothing is.

"I'll see you later, Tonys," Steve says, nodding his understanding at Stark. Stark swallows, and relaxes a little, obviously grateful that Steve's not pushing things. Steve nods at Tony, meaning _take care_ , and Tony swallows and nods back, so he thinks he understands.

Despite his resolve to remain one hundred per cent focused on the task of getting the hell _out_ of there, Steve does nearly get distracted in Dr. Richard's office. Dr. Richards, "please call me Reed", shows him to a computer where the files are already set up.

"Commander Stark asked me to ready them for you," Reed mutters. "I'll be in the corner, uh, Mr.—"

"Rogers. Captain Rogers." Steve smiles self-deprecatingly. "Captain was kind of a bigger promotion than I was even due."

"Captain Rogers," Reed says, and bows his head, turning away from him and leaving him to it.

Steve settles in to watch what turns out to be hours of footage of, well, him. And Tony. Most of it seems to be from either in this lab, or another even bigger one, and Steve can recognize Stark in the corner of the bigger lab, so that must be _his_ lab.

On the screen, Stark hums something under his breath, tuneless and rhythmical, as he works. All the Tonys end up helping him. 

There's no footage of the personal quarters, which isn't as reassuring as it should be — if there _is_ cameras in the quarters, Steve wouldn't be given access to the footage. He's also not been given any footage of hallways, so they're trying to limit his knowledge of the place. It's not like Steve can blame Rogers — he'd do the same in his position.

Uh, the same strategy for protecting the base, not the same _marrying Tony_ thing.

Even if it does already seem to be a recurring theme with the other thems.

"Do you not get any video of the other... us... disappearing?" Steve asks, when he's onto his fourth folder of _Steve and_ Tonys and this Tony has chin-length hair and is totally rocking it, actually. So his alternate self onscreen seems to think, finding many excuses to tangle his fingers in it. The alternate long-haired Tony _lets_ him. Easily. 

It doesn't just boggle the mind, it evaporates it. If Steve thought it might have been Rogers and Stark dressing up and _faking_ alternate selves before, seeing it onscreen obliterates the theory. These are _them_ , but they're different, too. Rogers might be a better actor — the Lord knows Steve hasn't seen such a good poker face since Dum Dum Dugan of the Howling Commandos took him for three bars of chocolate outside of Schwedt — but Stark is an open book of emotions. He couldn't act his way out of a paper bag.

"Do we have what? Footage of the disappearances? Oh, no. I'm afraid not," Reed says, shuffling over to Steve self-consciously. "I have seen it myself, though. It's like... a blink of the eye, and you're— _they're_ —gone. And the trace signatures in the air, the slight radiation, the lack of residue... I'm 98% certain the visitors return to their original reality. More equipment would be needed to send them to a _different_ place, equipment we do not have, and my equations do match up with the idea of... you being snapped back into place. Like a rubber band."

"98% sure," Steve repeats. Reed shrugs. It's better than nothing, Steve thinks.

Lunch is brought to them, again just plain fare. Reed eats with him, but eats in silence. It's weird to find a quiet scientist. Most of the scientists Steve met on Project: Rebirth loved having an audience to prattle to about their work, but then, Steve is about the tenth Steve that Reed's probably been forced to babysit. It probably gets tiring. 

After lunch, Reed goes back to his microscopes, Steve finishes the last two hours of video footage (the last Steve is _bald_ ; it _really_ doesn't suit him) and Steve's about to settle into watching the footage again for a second time when the lights suddenly turn a deep red. A second later, an alarm sounds.

Steve's tense, instantly on his feet, but he can't move to the door because Reed's hand is stopping him.

Which is slightly odd because one second ago, Reed was at the farthest point of the room, and it isn't a particularly small laboratory.

Steve stares in wide-eyed curiosity at the arm stretching across the length of the room, to where it's still attached to Reed's body. The fingers on Steve's chest waggle, and Reed steps forward, looking apologetic.

"A gamma radiation incident," Reed says, and the arm actually _contracts_ as Reed walks forwards.

"Wow," Steve says. Then he frowns. "Gamma radiation. Like Dr. Banner. Oh, I mean, do you _have_ Dr. Banner in your—"

"Of course. Dr. Bruce Banner is one of the leading experts in gamma radiation. It was his experiments that led me into the same area. And ironically it was your alternate self's participation in Project: Rebirth that spawned us all onto this path," Reed says. He eyeballs the door as it swoops open to reveal Dumb and Dumber. "I'm afraid I have to release you to less interesting company, Captain Rogers."

Steve nods. "I suppose this is a security alert?" he asks, as Reed hits the doorway.

Reed smiles, somewhat overly pleasantly. "Just an incident outside," he says, nods his head tersely, and stalks away.

Steve sinks against the table, and eyeballs Dumb and Dumber. He could take them both out in a heartbeat, but if the building is on alert, who knew how many guards were around? He sinks back down onto the table, props his elbows either side of the computer's keyboard and rests his chin on his hands.

There's definitely a mystery here. Pepper mentioned _outside_ like it was a dangerous thing, and now an alert is going on for _outside_. 

Steve doesn't have a clue how he's going to solve this mystery, but he resolves to try his best anyway. Maybe dinner tonight with Rogers and Stark will be a great opening. Or maybe Tony's gotten something interesting from Stark during their work together.

Steve sighs, and idly presses play on the video footage again. It's difficult to see in the low red light, but maybe he'll see something useful regardless.

* * *

The red light and annoying alarm continue for about three hours, and when Reed returns, looking even more gaunt than before, Dumb and Dumber mumble something about food.

"Roge— _Commander Stark_ invited Tony and myself to dinner," Steve explains to Reed. "Thanks for your company today, Dr. Richards."

"It's been my pleasure," Reed says, and tugs Steve forward for a handshake. Which is odd. Especially when Reed tugs too hard, pushing his face close to Steve's. "Look after Tony," Reed whispers, before pulling back, giving Steve's hands a final shake and letting them go. "I'm sure you'll have a pleasant time," Reed finishes, much more loudly.

"I'm sure I will," Steve echoes. Reed shakes his head, barely perceptible, and Steve understands — that was a warning. That could get Reed in trouble.

This place is dangerous for Tony, somehow. 

Steve's stomach clenches.

"Perhaps I'll see you later," Steve says, and lets Dumb and Dumber take him away.

When he gets to Rogers' private quarters, and presumably Stark's too from the presence of a very familiar robot in the corner (and Steve's already picturing Dumb and Dumber riding off with Dum-E into the sunset), Stark isn't there. Tony is, though. Steve can catch a glimpse of another door leading off to maybe another room, he doesn't know what it is, but this room seems to be a living area-stroke-multi-purpose room. There's a couch, and a TV screen embedded into the wall, and a small kitchen unit that's probably only good enough to make toast and coffee, and a few bookcases filled with books that don't look read.

There's also a table with four seats around it. Rogers is sat at the head of it, and Tony's ninety degrees from him. It's definitely Tony. Steve can tell, because he has that expression on his face. The one that he tends to use when Fury's got his ass in a basket and is handing it to him. The one that clearly says _I'm totally humouring the hell out of you_.

"Oh, Steve," Commander Stark says expansively, gesturing at the table. "Do come in and sit down. Tony here was just telling me about his twenty-first birthday party."

"Rager," Tony corrects. He flickers an ambiguous look at Steve as he starts to cross the room, and then he turns back to Rogers, his most charming smile fixing in place. That's his _I have to look good in front of the cameras_ smile, definitely. Steve's seen it a lot on news reports. (He follows _all_ of them on Google Alerts and StarkAlerts and even on HammerPlus even if though it's mostly redundant recycled headlines that are three weeks too old, okay. He's not digitally stalking Tony Stark. Well, he is. But he's digitally stalking _all_ of his team, so it's less skeevy. Possibly.) "It was a rager. Definitely. We had strippers. Strippers don't turn up to _parties_."

"I see the distinction," Rogers says, and then he eyeballs Steve much more coolly than the warm expression he's been turning towards Tony. "Is there a reason you're not sitting, Captain?"

Oh, it looks like Tony's told Rogers about his rank. Rogers is _clearly_ gloating.

"Bathroom," Steve says, weakly. "Uh, when Richards does his stretching thing, he must stretch out his bladder or something—"

"He does that," Rogers says.

"Reed's elastic Fantastic in this universe too?" Tony says, turning in his seat. "Rad."

"The bathroom's just up the stairs," Rogers says. "There's no point in snooping, though. You won't find anything but a bedroom and clothes."

"I wouldn't—" Steve starts.

"We're practically the same person," Rogers says. "You absolutely _would_."

Steve shrugs. "I just need to pee."

" _Steve,_ " Tony says, wrinkling his nose. "Polite company."

Steve smiles, no real amusement. Bucky called it his shit-eating grin, and he was probably right about that. "My apologies," he says, and turns to go through the door that leads to the stairs.

He heads up, and — disappointingly — finds exactly what Rogers said. There's a small functional bathroom, and a bedroom which consists of nothing but a bed and a wardrobe. Steve does peer in the closet, but there are only clothes in there. "Spoilsport," Steve mutters under his breath, shutting the closet. He turns back to go down the stairs, and that's when he notices another door. It's the same color as the walls, and he normally wouldn't have seen it. Tiptoeing carefully to it, Steve pulls it open to find another flight of stairs behind it.

And Stark sitting on one of the lowest steps, clutching at his chest with a pained expression.

He's pale, sweating, and Steve runs to his side automatically, one hand moving to support Tony's elbow, the other checking his pulse at his neck. Stark's pulse is _insanely_ fast.

"We've got to get you to Dr. Richards," Steve says, instantly. 

"No," Stark says, just as quickly, grasping at Steve and shaking his head. "No, no, it's fine. I was just up in my workroom, and got a little over excited, it's nothing to worry about—"

Stark, unfortunately for him, is about as transparent as a clean window. "Bullshit," Steve says. "You're sick, let me help you."

" _No_." Stark's voice raises to a near shout, and then he looks wide-eyed, almost guilty. "No," he adds after, in a whisper, his eyes moving nervously to the door behind Steve.

Steve suddenly gets it. "You don't want Ro— _your_ Steve to know, do you? You don't want him to know you're sick?"

Stark looks miserable, still clutching at his chest, and he shakes his head. "It's not bad, really. I just get these angina attacks every now and again. They totally pass."

"Ahuh," Steve says, disbelievingly.

" _Please_ , he won't respond well," Stark says, moving both of his hands to tug at Steve's shirt. 

"I—"

"You can't let him know. Please." His eyes rove across Steve's face, and there's just something about his pinched expression that makes Steve realize something.

This Tony is _scared_ of his Steve. 

What the _hell_?

"Of course not," Steve says. _Look after Tony,_ Reed had said, but maybe he meant _this_ Tony? "As long as you promise to take care of yourself."

Stark smiles, gratefully. "I promise."

Steve nods. He escapes back down to the dinner first after flushing the toilet, and Stark comes down ten minutes later, looking unruffled and happy as he takes the seat opposite from Tony, and when the two Tonys start talking, Steve almost glazes over; the conversation is fast and occasionally technical and _often_ — mostly on Tony's instigation and to Rogers' apparent eternal amusement — takes a dirty turn.

A couple of guards bring dinner through for them before things get too racy for Steve's comfort — chicken and potatoes, nothing too fancy, and Steve's actually beginning to miss vegetables pretty badly, but he's been raised to be a good guest, and not to insult the host.

"You learn anything good today at work, honey?" Tony teases as the conversation lulls over the food. "We were just covering basics, but I should be caught up enough to get to the good stuff tomorrow."

Steve can translate that. _Didn't find anything useful today, but I'll try again tomorrow_. "I saw footage of the other _you and_ mes," he says, shrugging. "And I have learned we do not look good bald," he adds, nodding at Rogers. 

"Yeah," Stark says, "you really didn't."

"You looked good with long hair, though," Rogers says, and Steve's stomach sinks oddly. Because he looks at _Tony_ for that one, not Stark. 

Stark doesn't notice, but Steve does. And he doesn't like it.

He doesn't get a chance to voice that to Tony, though. He tries to start a conversation after dinner, when Dumb and Dumber mark 2 (Tweedledum and Tweedledee, perhaps) show up to take them back to their quarters, but Tony shakes his head, and Steve shuts up. They walk there in silence, and Steve counts the doors, and automatically dresses for bed as soon as they're in the room.

It doesn't make sense not to. There's nothing else to do. Especially if Tony's not talking.

"I'll try not to be so, uh, y'know," Steve manages eloquently, as he sits on his side of the bed awkwardly.

"Don't worry about it," Tony says, but it's not in the same easy tone he's been using all night with Rogers and Stark. It's forced, like he's pushing it out from behind gritted teeth. 

Steve feels incredibly awkward, and too much aware of his limbs, as he slowly lowers into the bed. He lies rigidly on his back, arms in against his sides, legs pressed together, and he stares up at the ceiling. Maybe _not_ sleeping is a good idea.

He remembers the warmth of Tony's body pressed against his. 

It had been sort of nice, actually.

Steve's eyes flutter close as Tony turns out the lights and he resists the urge to whine out loud because this sucks. The bed dips beside him as Tony joins him. They lie like bookends for a moment, but then the bed dips again. Tony's breath is warm on his shoulder, and Steve turns his neck. Tony shifts again, his mouth near Steve's ear, and he just whispers, "Bugged. Don't know how badly," before he turns over, curling up into a fetal position, his back to Steve in the near darkness.

Oh. Tony wasn't talking because he didn't _want_ to talk to Steve. His silence is for necessary reasons.

It makes Steve feel a little easier. He relaxes a little, and takes some long, slow breaths as he starts counting the shadows to check if the guards move in the same pattern again. If he's relaxed, maybe he won't limpet onto Tony during the night. Maybe this whole thing _is_ survivable after all.

* * *

Steve can't breathe.

It's the ice floe, probably. It's pushing him down. There's a ton of it, and it's all around him, and there's a crack—There's a crack and he's going to be saved—but there's a rushing sound. A screaming sound. There's water coming in through the crack, and there's too much of it, and that screaming sound is him as the water drops down, rushes into his mouth, pours in and explodes him from the inside out as the water pushes him from side-to-side—

" _Steve_."

Steve wakes up with a muted whine, sitting upright in one fluid motion and gasping unsteadily for breath. There's a weight along his back, and a warmth, and it takes him longer than it should to realize it's Tony's arm, heavy on his back. Grounding him. Anchoring him back to reality.

"It was just a bad dream," Tony says. Steve can't have been asleep the _whole_ night, so this has to still be early morning, and Tony's early morning raspy voice is the right kind of rumble for Steve. It echoes right through his body, warming him and rooting him back to being fully awake.

"Ugh," Steve says, rubbing idly at his chest with one hand, and scrunching his other hand into a pillow. "I'm sorry. I'm really—" He's ashamed, and can't look Tony in the eye. "I'm just—"

"You were deep frozen for seven decades," Tony says, and the heavy warmth on his back disappears. Steve tries not to let out a moan of disappointment. He kind of liked it. "That sort of thing is bound to bring on a certain amount of post-traumatic stress. Believe me, I can identify."

There's a burning honesty in that last sentence that helps Steve overcome his shame. When he looks at Tony, Tony shrugs sheepishly.

"Water torture in Afghanistan. Heart basically ripped out by a trusted friend. Being sunk underwater in a destroyed house. Anxiety attacks whenever anyone said _alien_ or _New York_ or on one memorable occasion _hammer_. Take your pick, Cap, I'm a therapist's walking dream." Tony scrunches up his nose, and lies back down on his own pillow. "Not that I pay a therapist. Why, when I can annoy Bruce, or systematically destroy all the ones SHIELD tries to send me?"

"Suddenly Fury's muttering about the turnover of his Psych department makes so much more sense," Steve says, and he lies back down next to Tony. "I thought we weren't talking."

"We weren't." Tony smiles beatifically in the near darkness. "This might be an awkward question," Tony starts, turning his fading smile to the ceiling.

"We're in bed together in pyjamas that are about as thin as paper, and I interrogated you about your painful break-up, _and_ apparently I sometimes turn into a human limpet at night," Steve says. "I think we've covered awkward?"

Tony half-laughs on his next exhale. "Do you remember much of the ice? I mean—" He purses his lips. "I read the reports. As much as you read mine. With your serum, it's lucky you weren't awake for _all_ of it. I know you said officially you don't remember, but—"

 _But three minutes ago I was having a sleep panic attack and screaming about ice,_ Steve fills in mentally. He swallows and wishes he had a glass of water. "I remember a little of it," he says. It's easier in the near-darkness. He's not looking at Tony's face. And maybe this is something that he should have told _someone_ before now. Besides, after so much quiet time with Tony, he wants to fill the sound space back up. The silence was too weird, even if it was necessary. 

"I definitely remember going down, and down, and I remember freezing. It was so slow. Inch by inch of me, until I couldn't move. The world went black for the longest time, but... There's fragments. I remember sounds. Unearthly sounds. And when I woke up, it wasn't just the ball game on the radio being from too early a year... It was those sounds. I think—" Steve swallows again, and it's a burn in his chest. "I think those sounds could drive a person mad."

"Makes sense," Tony says, and Steve's chest tightens a little, because he nearly forgot Tony was there. "There used to be a form of torture — some people say it's Spanish, other say it's Chinese — where you're tied up, your ears are blocked, and you're forced to have water continually dripped onto your forehead. It's supposedly able to drive someone insane."

The silence that falls between them this time is not as awkward as the other silences have been.

"Plus, I had the weirdest winter," Tony says. "And I've heard it from good sources that you can empathize."

Yeah, Steve's never quite getting over Bucky being back from the dead any time soon. 

"Although I think I win," Tony says. His face turns slightly towards Steve, his eyes glinting in the near-dark. "I mean, have _you_ ever been owned by a, like, _ten_ year old boy?"

Steve blinks furiously, thinking it over. "No. I. Uh. I thought that I'd read that slavery was still illegal?"

Tony skips half a breath. It's about the limit of the surprise he seems to allow himself to show. "Sometimes I forget I'm talking to an old man."

Steve makes a strangled, sad sort of noise and stares up at the ceiling so he doesn't have to even glimpse Tony's face (which is still an entirely too close one pillow away) when he says, rushed, "I thought winding me up was the sole _reason_ for your multiple modern references."

"Are you kidding?" Tony actually does sound scandalized. "You're way too easy a target. The only old man I like to wind up is six foot two, wears a swooshy leather coat and has this whole pirate theme going on. Haven't you noticed how Hill basically _parrots_ back her orders to him?"

Steve risks a quick look left to gauge the truth of Tony's response in his face, but he's firmly staring up at the ceiling too now. "Baiting Fury — are you sure you don't have a death wish?"

"Ugh, Fury, I could _totally_ take him," Tony says.

"Um," Steve says.

" _What_."

"Well, Clint told me what _taking_ someone means in this decade, and I have to say I'm sort of surprised, and—"

Tony starts laughing. The bed shakes, and it's infectious. Steve can't help laughing too, even though if questioned, he's not sure whether he could give a good reason as to why it's so funny.

"Man, this is totally the greatest basis of my next Fury-related shenanigans," Tony says. "As soon as I can figure out how to see his face when he receives a wedding invitation to the Fury and Stark wedding, I am _doing_ it."

Steve snorts. "Let me know if you manage it and I'll order some flowers."

Tony snickers lightly. "I may make an excellent partner-in-crime out of you yet, Steve." The bed creaks, and Steve looks in time to see Tony smile at him. He can't help but smile back. It's been nice, and he's almost forgotten the brain melting panic of his night terror.

"And it might encourage Fury to stop sending us on these ridiculous bonding adventures," Steve says. 

"I know," Tony says. "What's wrong with mini golf and a company picnic?"

Steve laughs a little, although it sounds like another reference he should get and he doesn't. Now that he knows Tony _doesn't_ mean them intentionally, he feels lighter. He feels _better_. He sighs. "I wish we knew what did this."

"It's the question of the decade," Tony agrees.

Steve thinks back to their initial conversation, back in the lab on _their_ Triskelion. "I don't suppose it could be, uh. Nanobots?"

"Oh, the mini Marias," Tony says, recalling their conversation. "Sure. I mean, I'd imagine they _could_ be employed in a device. But they would just be able to speed up some processes. There would need to be something else for the nanobots to operate in. Man, my mom hated that movie."

Steve blinks. Thinks about it. " _Metropolis,_ " Steve realizes. The old movie from the 20s with the female robot Maria which helped Steve picture the nanobots.

"My mom's name was Maria," Tony says, and he's _definitely_ staring at the ceiling again. "I don't know if you met her."

Steve's about to say he met _one_ Maria, but remembers it was a feisty blonde who he locked lips with, and _hello awkward_ if it was _that_ Maria. 

"Dad and I used to quote it at her all the time. _We shall build a tower that will reach to the stars!_ "

"Oh, I get it now. The nanobots metaphor. The thousands who built the Tower of Babel, knowing nothing of the dreamers who conceived it."

"I didn't think of that," Tony admits. "I was just trying to think of a robot you'd recognize. Robbie the Robot was 1956, Twiki from Buck Rogers, way later—"

"Wait. _Buck Rogers?_ Is that still going?"

"No," Tony says, shaking his head. "The TV series only lasted a couple of years back in the seventies."

"My first _job_ was on Buck Rogers," Steve says. "Just drawing the boxes, but. Wow. I guess I thought it'd be dead and completely forgotten by now."

"Oh, you mean the comic. I always forget it was a comic first. I think it ran 'til the eighties. It was a bad decade, the eighties, by the way. You were lucky to miss it."

"I'm still reeling over Buck Rogers getting a robot," Steve says.

"Twiki was weird."

"You mean _brilliant_."

"You haven't seen it. I'm pretty sure Twiki was half dildo."

Yeah, that's a reference Steve's going to _ignore_. "It's _Buck Rogers_. And a _robot_. I mean brilliant."

"I'll concede the point."

"I think it's still early," Steve says. "We should—"

Tony's face is still close to his. Maybe it's drifted closer, between the laughing and smiling. Steve can feel Tony's breath on his face. "Yeah?" Tony says, and his gaze dips, and it might be Steve's imagination, but he could have sworn that dip was towards his mouth. "What should we do?"

"Sleep," Steve blurts, before he can say something embarrassing. Like, _how about that snuggling from last night_.

"Yeah," Tony says, a little more coolly, throwing his head back into the pillow and staring back up at the ceiling. "Good night, Cap."

"Good night," Steve says. His voice is a little hollow, but he's surprised. He doesn't know what he did wrong. He must have done _something_ wrong to make Tony withdraw, but he doesn't know _what_ exactly. He supposes Tony _was_ sleeping until his freak out. He's just quietly freaking about Tony being as silent tomorrow as he was after dinner when Tony says something else.

"You get it, right? Good night, Cap. Nightcap. Good nightcap. Alcohol joke."

It's not the best joke, but it's enough of a _I'm not mad_ peace offering to make the pressure lessen on Steve's chest. "You're hilarious," Steve says. 

"Yeah, well, Commander Stark thinks so," Tony says. "He laughs at all my jokes. I guess Stark doesn't make many."

"That's weird," Steve says. "Everything's funny to you."

"Ha, ha," Tony agrees, cheerfully. His voice goes more serious when he says, "Sleep's a good idea, though."

"Yeah," Steve says, and he tries to let his breathing even out again. Tony's breath shallows out first again, and Steve listens to it, like a weird kind of lullaby. He feels like he's on the edge of figuring something out, but it's not quite there yet. It's fluttering on the edge of his consciousness, and laughing at him for not picking it up yet. He thinks he nearly catches it, but sleep takes him away before he can make any sense out of it all. 

* * *

Steve couldn't apparently escape the medical check-up any longer.

Actually, he agreed to it at breakfast, to stop Rogers assigning Tony as the one Reed looked at first. It's just the way Rogers looks at Tony... It's making Steve feel weird, and he's usually okay when he trusts his instincts. So now Tony's off with Stark again, while Reed prods Steve with various very cold pieces of equipment. 

"I do have an extensive medical questionnaire to run you through," Reed says, sounding way too cheerful about the prospect. He lifts up a clipboard with what looks like forty sheets on it. "Maybe if you could come over to this more comfortable examining table."

Steve eyeballs it, and eyeballs Dumb and Dumber as they smirk at him. It doesn't look more comfortable. "Do I get to put my shirt back on for this at least?"

Reed laughs. "Of course."

Steve follows Reed over to the other table, because following orders is kind of what he's automatically trained for, unless the orders are sad, silly, or will get people killed. And then going completely _against_ orders is what Steve is very best at. But right now, apart from maybe death by humiliation from the two idiots guarding him, there's no reason not to move.

"Right," Reed says. "Just move those papers to your left a little. They're inconsequential. I'm a little disorganised."

"Sure," Steve says, and turns to move the papers, and then he does his very best not to freeze. He takes in some things very quickly — the angle of this table avoids the main security camera in the room, his thigh hides these papers from Dumb and Dumber, and the papers are of the other Steve and Tonys. He can see his bald alternate self looking up from the top of the pages. 

This isn't a coincidence. There's something in these papers Reed wants to show him. Something he's not supposed to see.

"Right," Reed begins, smiling ambiguously at Steve and not even flinching when Steve flips over the first sheet. "We'll start with your experiences with influenza, shall we? I'm going to need any occurrence of the common cold also, because one mistakes that with influenza frequently. Just to be thorough."

"Of course," Steve says, and starts searching his memories. He was a sickly kid and his immune system bullied him on the inside as much as he got pummelled by bullies on the _outside_. Dumb and Dumber glaze over a little, and Steve risks turning the next page when they look _particularly_ bored.

"Good," Reed says, even though Steve's halfway through a sentence. This is his plan, then.

Steve feels like he can trust Reed. He's not particularly sure why. And if this is some bizarre plan to gain his trust and let things slip, Steve doesn't know what paperwork on his alternate self will show, and as far as he can tell from his first few covert glances, paperwork on his alternate self doesn't show a damn thing, apart from two of them weren't serum-enhanced and _still_ somehow ended up in the present time with Tony Stark. Which is just as frightening in one way.

And then, as Steve's trying to recall every time he sneezed as a teenager, he finds out the truth.

One, it's not _his_ alternate self that is the reason for Reed sneaking him the paperwork, it's Tony.

Two, Tony _is_ in danger.

He remembers Stark clutching at his chest. This paperwork definitely concludes that Rogers _does_ know about Stark's injury. Apparently this Tony Stark has a hole in his heart. _All_ of the Tony Starks do. According to this paperwork, Commander Stark has ordered an EKG and a chest x-ray on every single Tony Stark.

According to this paperwork, three of the Tony Starks did not go quietly. Steve finds himself grinning at that one, but the grin fades fast.

Rogers is specifically _looking_ for a Tony Stark with a functioning heart. Is that to give it to _his_ Tony? And if Rogers knows Stark's heart is failing, then he would _want_ to have lots of alternate Tonys running around.

Steve's own heart chills. Rogers must be involved in making the alternate reality thing happen, but how? How is he doing this? And how can Steve keep Tony from doing the EKG and for Rogers to discover that apart from the shrapnel and arc reactor, Tony's heart doesn't have that hole?

Maybe the shrapnel is enough to convince Rogers to keep looking?

Steve has more questions than he has answers, and it's infuriating, and all he wants, suddenly, is to be with Tony. To be _sure_ Tony is safe. He remembers Rogers leaning in to Tony, smiling and being polite, and wonders if Rogers was even thinking at dinner, _if your heart is perfect I will pull it from your chest._

Halfway through listing his actual laundry lists of medical defects as a child, Steve can't take it anymore. "Look, this is fun and everything, sure. But I'd much rather go help out with Tony and Tony. Try and get us home quicker, y'know?"

Reed nods. "I understand," he says, putting down the clipboard. "We'll finish this off later."

"Great," Steve says, and goes to prod Dumb and Dumber to take him to Tony and Stark.

When he gets there, Rogers looks surprised — and not entirely in a _good_ way — to see Steve being led in the door. He lifts his hand from where he wasn't so subtly leaning on Tony's shoulder. Steve's stomach boils at the sight, and he's glad he's here to interrupt it.

"You said we were guests," Steve says, shrugging. "The prodding kind of took it out of me and Dr. Richards said a break was okay."

"I'm sure he did," Rogers says, politely. Tony waves at him, and gestures him over to the bank of screens he and Stark are working on.

Steve does his best, his absolute _best_ to try and sneak closer to Tony, but every time he tries, Rogers is there, showing him something else, asking Tony ridiculous questions and drawing Tony over to another screen. Stark eyeballs Rogers at one point, his eyes brimming worriedly. 

Does Stark know? Does Stark _know_ Rogers is looking for another heart? How can Rogers be so cold, getting in close to Tony, when he plans to rip him apart?

"Steve, you all right?" Tony asks. Rogers, from behind Tony, shoots Steve a look of cool dislike, and Steve feels Rogers' intentions like a punch to the _gut_. Rogers is a monster. A heart-stealing _monster._

"No," Steve says, and then, " _No_ ," more angrily, and that's too much, that's too far, and he can't say what he's figured out because then Rogers will move and it'll all be far too late, so he just explodes on something else. "Nothing's all right. We're being treated as damn prisoners. And there's something bizarre going on here." 

"Yeah," Tony says, looking a little wild at Steve's outburst. His fingers are clenched into his sides, and his body language _screams_ 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?' at Steve, but Steve can't stop himself now. Fear and loathing are a poison in his blood, and adrenaline is making his heart thunder in his ears, louder than standing right next to Thor when he calls lightning with Mjollnir, and some of this has to spill out or Steve will explode. "There's an Einstein-Rosen bridge leaking Tonys and Steves all over the place, of _course_ we're literally _in_ bizarro world."

Another reference Steve doesn't get. Even though it's not intentionally mean, it's still annoying as hell. "That alarm yesterday. And your continual references to _outside_ like it's a game of lava and only inside is safe. And the fact that all your food is _storage rations,_ no fresh food. And—"

"And you're right," Rogers says. His voice is calm, but it slices through Steve's words like a steel blade.

"I am?" Steve falters. He tenses. Maybe he can't beat himself in a fight, but Tony would have his back, surely. If this all goes to shit, maybe they'll have a chance, if he doesn't sit back and let it happen. "What am I right about?"

"That we've been hiding something from you," Rogers says, and he walks coolly over to one of the monitors hanging down from the roof. His fingers dart across the screen, and then the farthest-off wall in the room _shudders_. 

And then slides down. Like a security wall, collapsing down into a hidden recess below it. And Steve's breath catches in his throat.

For a minute, he forgets all about the danger to Tony, because this — this is bigger than one person.

"What happened?" Tony asks, the shock palpable in his voice. Steve stares, and feels something at his side; he jumps a little in shock when he realizes it's Tony's hand, sliding into his. Steve grasps blindly at it in return. The anchor is good. He can feel Tony's pulse under his fingers, reminding him Tony's here and alive, at least for now.

In the corner of his vision, Rogers is side-eyeing him, not even bothering to hide his loathing at this development. If Steve holds a little tighter after that, he's never confessing to it.

Steve's main attention, though, is still on the window. The glass looks thick, but he worries for a moment that it's not going to hold against the disaster of _outside_.

If Steve had ever been commissioned to paint an image of what he thought Armageddon would look like, it would be the view from this window.

It's like the Triskelion is up high, maybe on a mountain or something, and they're looking down across a valley beneath them. Ruins of large buildings spiral up through what looks like a perpetually active sand storm, and the air is a thick layer of smog, casting the whole scene in the color of sludge and decay.

"What happened?" Steve repeats. He's feeling a little dizzy, and Tony's hand in his is clammy, and he's not surprised. They're literally looking at the end of the world.

"The simple answer: we don't know," Stark says, shrugging. When he turns to them, the gray light of the world outside making him a dark silhouette, there's definite moisture in his eyes. This Tony is definitely no stranger to showing his emotions; the Tony beside him is stoic, dry-eyed, and has that arrogant tilt to his chin that he has when he's trying _not_ to emotionally react. _Put on the suit and let's go a few rounds._

"Best guess?" Tony pushes.

"We got hint of a re-formed HYDRA pulling something off with a weapon powered by a cube," Rogers says.

"The tesseract," Tony mutters. He bites his lip then — and that's a micro-clue again. Tony didn't mean to say it, and he regrets it. 

"You've run into it before," Rogers says, sounding excited. He takes a step towards them, and it's only now he's holding _onto_ Tony that Steve can feel the flinch.

Tony's _noticed_ Rogers' attention, and he doesn't like it.

"It's, uh," Tony starts, and his pulse quickens under Steve's thumb. He's about to lie, then. "Stolen in our reality."

"Probably by HYDRA," Steve says, and widens his eyes a little, going for melodramatic and probably instead looking like that video Clint showed him on loop for an hour of a dramatic chipmunk. Clint had laughed the whole time. Maybe that was their official SHIELD bonding time. Fury needed better ideas. "Maybe the same thing's going to happen to our world." He turns to Tony, keeping the wide-eyed expression going, even though it feels a bit silly now.

"Yeah," Tony says. "Maybe." 

"We got into the Triskelion. We got it cleared by the president last year to use as a base of operations for the Stark-SHIELD initiative, and it was our emergency protocol to withdraw into this base to figure out our next plan of attack," Stark explains. "Next thing we knew..." He trails off, and swings across one of the large monitors. He pulls up a grid of the world. "Our resources are low. We've been trying to get things from outside, but the air turns toxic. We can't be out for long. But with what we have, we've estimated that maybe 94% of the world is like this." Stark gestures at the outside. 

Steve swallows, and it's difficult and painful. "Any working theories?" 

"Nanobots. Temporal and spatial disruption. Aliens." Stark shrugs. "A thousand theories and we're nowhere near. And with alternate versions of us popping up randomly every now and again, we can only assume whatever weapon HYDRA made has ripped the fabric of reality itself. And that mess outside could leak _through._ " 

"Worse case scenario," Rogers says. "But the worst so far has been a couple of rambunctious sand storms and occasionally we get visitors who raise the average attractiveness of the Triskelion for a little while." He smiles easily at Tony, and Tony returns the smile. 

Rogers doesn't know Tony, and doesn't know that the tightness of his forehead means that the smile is _completely_ fake.

"Now you know," Stark says, tentatively, as he presses a key to make the shutters come back up over the terrible view, "maybe you can help me work on that as well. Just for the few days you're here." 

"Of course," Tony says. "If the same things happen to us, I need all the headstart we can get."

"Good decision," Steve says. "I think I'll stay by your side and help." He smiles widely at Rogers, who's obviously trying his best not to curl his lip.

"Great idea," Rogers says. "I'll help too."

"Fantastic," Stark says, cheerfully oblivious to the raging tension in the room. Tony quirks Steve a dark look, a _what are you up to?_ expression. Steve just beams back. Yeah, he's starting to understand Tony Stark a whole lot better now, just after two days, so maybe he'll revise his opinions on Fury's brilliant bonding ideas.

Later, though. Much later. When they're home and not in a post-apocalyptic cage with an insane version of himself who's trying to steal Tony's heart.

Yeah. Later's a good plan. If they even _get_ a later. Steve hovers close to Tony's side, and silently vows to do all it takes to make sure they do.

* * *

Watching Tony and Stark at work is like watching a sentient _octopus_.

It also doesn't help that Rogers is cleverer than Steve. Wait, that's probably not true — he's just more learned in the areas Tony and Stark are discussing at speeds faster than a Packard Clipper. He guesses it makes sense. If it had been _his_ Earth that had turned into this living nightmare, Steve thinks he would learn anything and everything he could to help.

As it is, he's in way over his head. 

Especially when Reed comes and joins in, and then Steve's just completely lost. Mostly he just tries to stay out of the way, and he watches. And if he watches _especially_ fiercely when Rogers lays an arm on the back of Tony's chair, well. He can tell himself he's just looking after his teammate.

After a while even Rogers' overly obvious (obnoxious) flirting (and really, Steve needs to stop thinking he's physically _incapable_ of flirting, because apparently the serum body _is_ made for it, so that's just _another_ skill Rogers is making him feel inferior for not possessing) becomes backdrop to what's happening on the multiple computer screens, because Steve can see _some_ of what's happening. The maps he understands. The colors must be hot spots, places worse affected. 

Steve wanders closer to one of the maps, and it's Stark that sidles up to him, after shooting a weird side-glance to Rogers — and maybe Steve's not the only one that's noticed the flirting. He'd feel bad, except most of Steve's emotions right now are tied up in worry about _his_ Tony.

"So the red sections are where—"

"To put it in layman's terms, it's where there's a lack of energy," Stark explains. "Everything there — heat, light, sound, low-level radiation — it's all gone. And the green sections are where the remote sensors we sent out are still picking up evidence of the main four energy types."

"And the yellow?"

"Traces of plasma," Stark says. 

"He'll ask you about the pink and purple sections next," Tony says, tapping away on his screen without even looking around. 

"Because they're both labelled on the key as radiation," Steve says.

"There's no real difference between pink and purple," Stark starts to explain, "because—"

"It depends on the grip," Tony interrupts, and snickers to himself.

"Ha," Stark says, turning to him, "you're the first person to realize why I colored them that way."

"Radiation has a grip?" Steve asks, looking between them. It just serves to make Tony and Stark break out into actual, unmistakable _giggles._ Even Rogers chuckles. Tony makes a lewd gesture with his fist, and Steve's confused stare freezes.

 _Oh._ It's a penis joke. _Awesome._

"I don't think he likes dick jokes," Tony confides in Stark, loudly.

"But our dick jokes are the _best,_ " Stark says. "I mean, what do you get when you cross a penis and a potato?"

"A _dicktator,_ " Tony says, gleefully. "Hey, we should check our joke repertoires, actually. For _science._ See what the crossover is."

"For _science,_ " Steve repeats weakly, looking between them. His frown is possibly hardwired to his face, and that's what he's happy about. Especially because he kinda wants to laugh.

Actually, all he _really_ wants to do is laugh. But if he encourages Tony by laughing, he'll _never be free of the dick jokes._ And Steve really thinks his working relationship with Iron Man will be better if they keep Tony's dick references to a minimum, thank you very much. He pushes down his amusement, and tries not to get _resentful_ at Tony for _making_ him shove down his laughter.

"What did the penis say to the condom?" Stark asks.

"Cover me," Tony yells, "I'm _going in._ "

"I was six inches away from making that dick joke."

"What do you get when you cross an owl and a rooster?"

"I don't know that one." 

"A cock that stays up all night."

"You're a genius," Tony declares. "Which makes _me_ a genius."

"Seriously," Steve says, "I'm sure there are much better methods of checking humor crossover _for science_ than making my brain turn into mush." 

"I think my alternate is a stick in the mud," Rogers says, arching an eyebrow. 

" _No,_ " Steve says, "but it's not exactly appropriate—"

"He's a _dick_ in the mud," Stark says, and high-fives Tony. Steve wants to cover his face with his hands and never see the light of day again, because the light of day is _mortifying._

"A man walked into a shoe store and flopped his dick on the counter," Rogers offers. "The sales lady said, _That's not a foot_! The man replied, _No, but it's a good ten inches_."

Both Tony and Stark burst out laughing. Steve stares at his alternate self like Rogers has ultimately betrayed him.

"I hate all of you," Steve says, and slumps back into a chair while the three of them laugh at him like he's the funniest thing ever.

"You should relax," Rogers says. "They're just trying to get a rise out of you."

Tony and Stark laugh more at that. Maybe Steve's grinding his teeth a little.

"It's your turn to make a dick joke," Tony tells him.

"I don't _know_ any dick jokes," Steve says, and then squints at Tony, because he won't let Rogers beat him, so even though it feels _beyond_ weird, he tries, "Should I say _your_ dick is the joke?" 

Stark laughs at that while Tony scowls.

"Hey, mister goatee, laugh it up. We're basically identical," Tony tells Stark. 

Rogers bursts out laughing at Stark's sudden silence and sad expression. 

The silence doesn't last long. 

"Hey. What do you do with a year's worth of used condoms?" Tony asks. 

"No idea."

"Melt them, turn them into tire and call it a _goodyear_."

" _Goodyear_ doesn't exist here anymore," Stark says, sadly. 

"I guess _Trojans_ don't exist anymore either. Your world is a sad, sad place." Tony pats Stark's shoulder commiseratively. And then side-eyes his alternate self contemplatively. "You know, you and me, it _would_ practically be masturbation—"

Rogers steps in and physically pushes Stark back over to his screen. "And now let's get back to work," he says. "Unless _both_ of you want a trip to the medbay?"

"Nope," Tony and Stark say in unison.

Sadly, the spate of dick jokes does nothing to change the atmosphere. It's like it never happened, really. Rogers begins flirting _again_ with Tony, like he can _literally_ charm his heart out of him, so Steve starts to tentatively ask Stark a few questions again, and he's just getting into a graph showing the _spread_ of the storms from when they started two years ago when the whole room _shakes_.

"Damn," Rogers says, suddenly straightening and oh, yes, Steve recognizes that pose. He's all-action, no-frills. _This_ , Steve realizes, is Commander Stark. The room plunges into red light. He leans over and punches a command. "Edwards, Carrick, in here now. I need you to escort our guests to their quarters."

"But I—" Tony starts.

"No other alternates have been here less than a week," Rogers snaps, no nonsense. "There'll be time tomorrow. This is _not_ negotiable. You'll go easy or you'll go hard but you _will_ go."

"That's what _she_ said. Except now you sound like my dad, so, incest joke, nope." Tony mutters.

"You _are_ aware that you're still talking, right?" Steve says.

Tony narrows his eyes, but doesn't respond, because Steve's hit a nerve.

Although Steve wants to put up a fuss, he lets Edwards and Carrick (hey, who knew Dumb and Dumber had real names anyway) take him and Tony back to their quarters.

Steve tries to ask Dumb what's going on, but he just grunts. Tony shrugs at him.

The whole base is drenched in red light except for their room, which is white light vaguely tinged with pink from the red seeping through the gaps in the door frame. It makes an eerie experience even stranger, and Tony seems to think the same as Steve — he kicks his shoes off and picks up the blanket on the bed, ducking under it. 

A few seconds later, Tony's head sticks out from beneath the blanket. "Are you coming or not?" Tony demands, and ducks back under. "I'm resisting making a very dirty joke right now, all for your benefit," he adds, his voice muffled.

Steve stares for a moment. And then another moment. And then he toes off his shoes, and, feeling very odd and terribly self-conscious, he lifts up the edge of the blanket and clambers awkwardly under.

Tony's sitting cross-legged, but there's not enough room to copy him, so Steve sits awkwardly, legs out, feet peeking out from the blankets. The pink light filters through the blanket, meaning that Steve can still see Tony's face if he pieces the shadows together.

"Ha, this is like the blanket fort I never did as a kid," Tony says, looking up at the blanket ceiling tented between their heads. "I told dad I wanted to do it once, and he bought me a mini plastic castle thing for the corner of my room. I think I prefer the low-budget version."

"So... we're playing forts?" Steve says. He tilts his head and the fabric deeps, so he straightens.

"Yes. I decided to duck under a blanket to play forts. We're grown dudes, in post-apocalyptic America with our insane doppelgangers, and I thought, hey, let's play a game—"

"You're going to tire out your sarcasm glands if you keep going," Steve tells him.

"I can build new ones," Tony says instantly. "Or, I could. If they existed. And weren't you just being sassy. You should be sassy more, FYI. It suits you."

"I'm a delight," Steve sasses, just to amuse Tony. He thinks he sees Tony's mouth quirk into a smile, but it's too dark to tell for sure.

"The blanket masks the video," Tony says. "Reed told me. There's no sound in the surveillance cameras in the guest rooms."

" _Reed_ told you?" Steve questions. "How did Reed tell you?"

Tony looks at Steve like he's stupid. "Binary code in the graphs he was showing me," he says, like Steve should have noticed. "He couldn't tell me much, 'cause Stark was hovering, but... the blanket trick is one of his best."

"Oh," Steve says, _feeling_ stupid. "Reed showed me some charts in the medlab. Do you think we can trust him?"

Tony shrugs, making the whole fort move with him. "In our reality, Reed is happy. Healthier. And he has a family. If they were outside when this Apocalyptic stuff went down..." Tony trails off unhappily, and Steve's stomach rolls a little. "He's going to try and slip me a key card tomorrow. He thinks there's something fishy about all the alternates turning up because of the pattern of it — we're turning up too randomly for it to be a genuine rift or pattern."

"Someone's controlling it," Steve realizes. "Huh. Reed showed me some print-outs. Uh. I don't quite know how to phrase this—"

"That sounds deeply reassuring already," Tony says.

"Stark — the alternate you — he has a heart problem. I think... I mean, I suspect—"

"Spit it out. You're actually creeping me out a little. I mean, your alternate, creepy dude self for sure creeps me out, but _you_ are about as scary as a teddy bear. Normally. Except now, where you're edging into _teddy bear with fangs_ territory."

"I think Commander Stark," — and yeah, that's never going to _not_ be awkward to say — "is looking for a replacement heart for _his_ Tony."

"Yup. I'm officially freaked out," Tony says, and twitches, obviously resisting the urge to rub at his chest. "So whenever he's gone on and on about getting me to the medlab for a routine check-out?"

"He wants to assess the viability of using your heart for his, uh. Husband."

" _Amazing,_ " Tony says. "Being kidnapped always works out so well for me." He does rub at his chest then, subconsciously, and he shakes his head. 

"I can't say I'm not worried. Each of the other Tonys had a hole in their heart. But despite your arc reactor and the shrapnel, that's not an issue for you, right?"

"Uh," Tony says.

Steve's chest clenches, as if in sympathy. "You _do_ have a hole in your heart? Why didn't you—"

"No, no, I don't have a hole in my heart." Tony grimaces. "I just also don't have the arc reactor and shrapnel anymore?"

Steve stares. That wasn't in the report he read about Tony's winter traumas, although it's possible he glossed over it in the whole _Tony Stark is dead_ drama that the papers merrily rolled him through for a couple of weeks. (Which in itself, compounded by the whole _Bucky is actually alive_ thing, was nearly as surreal as this whole _parallel universes are real_ shindig is.)

"I was trying to be someone else for Pepper," Tony says, realizing Steve's not going to prompt him further. "She's perfect, so I guess I was trying to be perfect too. I thought fixing my heart would mean _I_ was fixed. If I'd known a psychotic version of you from a parallel universe was going to try and haul my heart out of my chest because it's the healthiest one he's found yet, I might have reconsidered that." He quietens as he sulks, "Especially as it didn't fix me enough for her."

"Hey," Steve says. "You didn't need _fixing_."

"Yeah," Tony snarks, "I'm _flawless_." The sarcasm is thick and hot in the space between them. "Did you see if any of the other version of us, well me, did I have an arc reactor in any of these realities?"

Steve shakes his head. "Not even any sign of the shrapnel, or that they even _had_ an arc reactor at any point."

"Well, there's that, then," Tony says.

"There's what?"

"The Tony Starks with a hole in their hearts end up with the Steve Rogers of their reality," Tony says. "This says a lot about you, by the way."

"Uh," Steve says, the King of Eloquence.

"I can kind of see how we'd work out, actually," Tony says.

" _What._ " 

"Pepper was too perfect," Tony continues, like Steve hasn't said anything. "Which was probably one of the big problems. Bruce said so, too. Said I had her set on too high a pedestal. But your flaws, phew-ee. The sulking, the immovable chiselled jaw of stubbornness, the immutable gung-ho 40s side-parting—"

"It's okay, please keep listing my flaws, I don't have any self esteem to wound anyway," Steve says. 

"Your _adorable_ grumpiness—"

"If this is how the other Starks lured their Steves to bed, I think my alternate selves might have a hole in the _brain_."

"Does that make you the Scarecrow? I mean, I'm _clearly_ the Tin Man. Does that make Fury Dorothy?"

"Thor is absolutely Toto." Steve just about manages to say it with a straight face. 

" _Yes._ The hair. Tell me Natasha's the Wicked Witch. No, wait, tell Natasha that to her face. Except, she might like it. Hmm. I'll rethink that one."

"The Hulk is green," Steve offers.

"Ooh. Bruce is Glinda, but he's the Wicked Witch when he's the Hulk. I like that."

"When do I point out that we're discussing _The Wizard of Oz_ instead of a more important escape plan?"

"Ah, there it is — the stick up your ass. Which is another flaw, by the way."

"We're not married in our universe yet, so you don't have any right to talk about what may or may not be up my ass."

There's a suspicious pause, and then Tony says, sounding almost delighted, " _Yet_."

Steve blinks. "What?" 

"You said yet. Cap, you said _yet._ We're not married _yet_." Tony claps his hands like a delighted kid at Christmas. "I'm mocking you with that for the rest of your _life._ "

"I did not say yet," Steve automatically responds. "I didn _'_ t. Did I?"

" _We're not married in our universe yet,_ " Tony mimics, in a, yes, freakishly good imitation of his voice.

Steve makes a strangled sound, and stares into the blanket, shaking his head, making the blanket shift around them. "Sorry. _Sorry._ Sorry, this place is messing with my _head_. It was seeing all that footage the other day of all the other _us_. It was freaky."

"I dunno. I quite liked the yet." And it's dark, but apparently even without subtlety available to him, Tony can still manage a visible leer. 

" _Tony_ ," Steve says, embarrassment still making him want to shrink and curl up into a ball and forget this whole thing has never happened. _Yet._ Why did he even think that? Their universe is completely different. No Avengers. No Iron Man. Rogers had clearly survived from the 40s, so Project: Rebirth had to exist in some form, but could he really not be Captain America in this reality?

"Fine, fine. Bizarro world makes us all crazypants," Tony says. _p_ >p>"Not just this world," Steve offers. "None of the other Tony Starks even had any mention of _ever_ having an arc reactor in their chests."

"And all of the other Tony Starks are involved or married to some version of you. Lose the arc reactor, gain a Steve Rogers, apparently." Tony tips his head back, making the fabric shift around them again. 

"Without the arc reactor, you'd have never made Iron Man, which explains why they didn't know of the Avengers," Steve says, because focussing on that is easier than focussing on other things. Like the heat of Tony's knee against his leg. And the idea that Tony might have been thinking about their parallel selves' pervasive romances. _All of them,_ Stark had said. But not _them_. And they were the only ones with Iron Man, and probably the Avengers too, considering how Stark and Rogers had reacted to the word.

"Probably not," Tony says, shrugging stiffly. "Which is just bizarre to think about now. Especially when—"

"—you _are_ Iron Man," Steve says. "It's interesting, don't you think? All the universes where Iron Man doesn't exist, your heart has a hole in it."

"Interesting's one word for it. _Painful-too-literal-metaphor_ is another."

"That's four words," Steve says.

"Pedantic." Tony drums his fingers against his knees. Steve can feel the movement in the small space. The air is warm underneath the blanket, and Tony's knee is warmer still, a hot point between them. "So what's our plan, Cap?"

"Look for moments to escape. You take special care around Commander Stark and try everything in your power _not_ to end up in Reed's medlab? We need to get out of here. If Reed's right, and someone sent us here, we can get back under our own steam too. I bet that's how the other ones left — once the Commander found out their Tonys didn't have suitable hearts to rip from their chests."

"Thanks for the mental image _,_ " Tony bitches, and then wriggles, obviously affected by that. "Damn. Escape it is. Unless..."

"Unless?" Steve prompts. 

"Well," Tony starts, " _here,_ " he says, and takes one of Steve's hands in his own. Steve doesn't know what's going on, but he instinctively lets Tony's hand guide him. His fingers come in contact with warm skin, a smattering of hair, and something else. Tony's fingers guide his over his chest where his heart lies beneath, and it's almost a _spiral_ of a scar, where the arc reactor used to be. "They had to do a lot of reconstruction to cover the space my old ticker battery used to be, took skin from some other places on my body. You're actually touching my butt right now, if you want specifics."

Steve pulls his hand back automatically, and Tony chuckles. "You think we can bluff you have the hole in your heart and our surgery techniques are different?" Steve questions.

"It's a workable theory," Tony says, with a shrug. "I'd believe it."

"And once the Commander finds out you're unsuitable as a heart donor, we'll be sent back?" It sounds _way_ too easy.

"Or," Tony says, "this parallel dimension hopping is a one-way trip and the Commander kills the ones that aren't suitable."

"You're very cheerful," Steve deadpans.

"I'm also available for funerals and bah and bat mitzvahs."

"I'd like to keep you available," Steve says, firmly. "Next chance we get, we get out."

Tony nods, knocking the blanket fort down with the abrupt movement. He makes no move to pick it up, and Steve awkwardly sits there, legs outstretched, the silence almost uncomfortable. 

When he looks over at Tony, Tony's looking down at his own crossed legs. "I still can't piece together the fact that you know me so well where Pep couldn't. I just—"

"Hey." Steve reaches out clumsily, because he's too focussed on his thoughts for physical precision, and somehow he does seem to find Tony's wrist. Tony's pulse beats beneath his fingers, and Steve holds on. Loose enough for Tony to slip free. Loose enough for Steve to feel gratification that Tony _doesn't_. "You were wrong. Back on our side of the Triskelion."

"Don't tell me you've been studying up on nanobots while you were sulking in the corner," Tony says.

"I wasn't _sulking,_ " Steve lies. " _Much,_ " he tags on, because he can't lie to Tony's face, even if Tony's face is resolutely not turned in his direction. "I was thinking." 

"There's medical procedures that can stop you doing that," Tony says. "Go on. Humor me. What was I wrong about?" _p_ >p>And Steve nearly chickens out, nearly makes another joke, but maybe there's no time for that. And maybe Commander Stark will try to kill him as soon as he knows Tony's heart is better than Stark's, and really, there's no guarantee Tony will live any longer than Stark when all is said and done. But maybe they shouldn't waste any more time joking. A little time, yes, because one thing Steve learned in the trenches was that humor's almost as necessary as sleep, oxygen and food. Without it, people gave up. Threw themselves onto grenades not out of bravery, but because they just couldn't damn take a thing anymore. Yeah, humor has its time and its place, but not right now.

Now is the time for raw, honest, vulnerable truth.

It's easier if he doesn't look directly at Tony. "I do like you," Steve says, mostly to the space beyond Tony's head.

Tony nods silently. He still doesn't pull his wrist away. And when Steve holds his breath, and counts Tony's heartbeats, his heart rate calms under his touch. 

* * *

The red alert — and don't think Steve's hypervigilance isn't cranked up to insanity levels by the fact that there's something worse than Armageddon and _Stealing The Heart From Alternate Tony Starks_ being kept as a secret — ends an hour later. At least, Steve _thinks_ it's been an hour, but he honestly doesn't know.

They don't speak anymore. They just sit on the bed like weird bookends, breathing quietly in the dark, matching their inhales and exhales and staring at the walls. Tony doesn't pull away at any part of it, not until the lights turn white again and Dumb and Dumber come to fetch them back to the labs.

Steve doesn't get any chance to really notice the binary code Reed is apparently showing Tony; he sits and resumes sulking in the corner (okay, yes, he was totally absolutely sulking) until nighttime. It's only when they're being escorted back to their room that Steve feels fingers touching his wrist, and Steve almost thinks Tony's going to take his hand in a mirror image of the weird intimate wrist holding on the bed that neither of them could break, but instead, Steve just feels the cool slide of hard plastic against the soft flesh of his palm, and he knows. 

Reed's done it. Reed's already managed to slip them a keycard.

They dress for bed quietly without speaking, and when they do lie in bed, Tony doesn't pull the blanket over their heads. He does roll over slightly, hiding his face in the curve of Steve's shoulder, and Steve holds back the shudder his body wants to make as best as he can. 

"The card can only get us to the ground level," Tony murmurs into Steve's skin. "Far enough to get us to the lab. Maybe we can find the alternate universe device."

There's a warmth, where maybe Tony's mouth has grazed against his neck, but that's just a weird thought. Too weird for Steve, whose body has felt almost _otherly_ , weird, disconnected, not his own, since—He wants to say since holding Tony's wrist earlier, but maybe it's since getting here, or more damningly maybe it's since waking up with his arms around Tony, with Tony snuggling into him. 

And dammit, why's he only thinking about this now? He'd been mortified to find himself all over Tony, but Tony hadn't been shrinking away. Now he remembers it, Tony had been cuddling _back_. Steve hadn't noticed, he was too busy freaking out at how rude it was to plaster yourself over someone who's only sharing your bed out of necessity. 

Then again, maybe Tony was only doing it because what _else_ could you do with six foot of super-serum soldier plastered to your back?

"Are you thinking again?" Tony asks, sounding amused as he rolls over. Steve's almost paralyzed for a moment, but... he has something he needs to say to Tony. And masking his mouth in the darkness of Tony's shoulder is his best option. If he's testing to see if Tony's freaked out by his proximity, surely this is his best chance?

 _You sound like a stalker, Rogers,_ his brain points out. Steve swallows, and slowly, too casually, turns his body. He moves his arm over Tony's body, not touching him, just tenting around him so it might _look_ to the cameras like they're embracing. Steve's apparently a creepy stalker, but he's not going to _consciously_ be a handsy jerk. Not if Tony's unreceptive to it. He leans in as close as he can, hiding the movement of his mouth by tilting his face into Tony. 

"If the pattern of guards are the same as last night, we need to wait for the second changing of the door guards," Steve instructs, keeping his voice as low as possible, tensing his muscles so that he doesn't touch Tony. "Then after the next patrol, there's a space of about forty minutes before the next door guards appear."

"Mm-hmm," Tony says. His voice is muffled, probably by his hand, when he says, "Reed told me about the control room next to the lab. I can probably redirect some of the surveillance cameras from there to give us the same opening tomorrow."

"If we get the chance."

"Yeah, and even if we do get caught tonight..."

"...pretty sure they won't blame us too much," Steve murmurs, and then closes his eyes tight for a moment when Tony grabs the arm Steve's hovering over him, and pulls him in tighter. The warmth of Tony's body is a distraction, a compelling distraction, but now Steve feels creepy _and_ paranoid, because Tony's still probably doing this for safety's sake, and he's the pervert liking it. Taking advantage of a friend and a teammate in a vulnerable position. Yeah, Rogers is definitely shady, and Steve's deeply ashamed that he's not a _ridiculously_ far fallen apple from the same tree. "They'd do the same in our position."

"It's a nice position," Tony says, innuendo automatically sliding into his voice. He wouldn't say it if he knew what Steve is thinking, what he can't help thinking about. All the alternate Tonys and Steves. The way one Steve had his hands in an alternate Tony's long hair. The easy looks between Rogers and Stark when Rogers isn't being his own variety of creepy bastard.

And, yeah, Steve's definitely busy with his own deviancy. When this is all done, and they're _home,_ he's definitely going to take another — hopefully less aborted — trip around the world. Spend some time as far away from Tony Stark as he can manage until he can sort his head out some, because right now he's just about as messed up as one person can be, and having to talk right into Tony's skin is not helping matters.

Steve definitely likes one thing — how positive he is that they'll get home. He thinks it's because of Stark, actually. Stark's a book of open emotions, apart from unsuccessfully hiding his heart condition from Rogers, and Steve thinks if all their alternates _died,_ Stark wouldn't be so cheerful around them. So there's some reassurance there, even if Steve _can't_ swallow down the panic that they're not like the other Steves and Tonys, because Rogers has been looking at Tony like he's the answer to life, the universe and everything. When Steve watched those surveillance videos of their alternate selves, Rogers didn't have that smarmy expression on his — well, _their_ — face.

Escape is SHIELD protocol, and their best option at the moment. Steve needs to stop second guessing himself so badly, but apparently it's part and parcel of the whole identity crisis he has going on. It's traumatic as anything learning that you're not the only _you_ in existence. And it's probably worse than _that_ learning that a) your parallel self is probably an evil dick and b) you _yourself_ aren't as pure as you thought you were.

Well, maybe Steve's going to have to finally take up that offer of therapy Director Fury keeps emailing him after all.

Especially when he realizes what they're also going to _have_ to do to escape. 

"Pass me the keycard," Steve murmurs into Tony's neck, "and try not to freak out."

"Why?" Tony demands after shuffling the card back to Steve from where they'd slid it under Tony's pillow, the question muffled into his own arm. "What are you—"

Yeah, _this_ genius idea hurts a lot, but this is the sharpest thing Steve's been able to get a hold of since coming here; what hurts more is the idea of Tony having to do it too, without the super-serum enhanced-healing thing on his side. 

"Oh my god," Tony breathes, "you're a _lunatic_."

"Apparently it's a genetic thing," Steve hisses, trying not to make the sound he _wants_ to make when his fingers curl around a small metal chunk. Keeping his hands under the blanket, he rips a piece of the pillow case off and ties it around his arm to stop the bleeding. "We can't run the risk that my alternate is tracking our movements."

"Great," Tony breathes. " _Awesome_ ," he adds, but that doesn't stop him from snatching the hard-plastic keycard from Steve. "Hope these things work still covered in blood."

"I'm sorry," Steve says, because he is. He's sorry he couldn't find a gentler way, but there isn't; this is all they have. 

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Tony chants, and then huffs, and then says, stuttering, "I _can't_ —" and "Cap—" and Steve understands. He presses in close, and Tony turns his head into the curve of Steve's neck, and Steve thinks maybe he's doing that to muffle the curses into Steve's skin, but instead, Tony's teeth bury in and latch down as Steve digs the edge of the keycard into the soft flesh of Tony's underarm. Tony's thin whine of pain is muffled by the bite, and Steve sharply appreciates the sting of it. _Needs_ it on a level that he doesn't quite understand. It's easier, somehow, to hurt Tony like this — even though it's necessary — when Tony's hurting him in return. 

It's better that he did it on himself first — it makes it easier to find the lump of metal, and he yanks it out, quickly tying the remains of his pillow case around Tony's arm, and he tries not to think about how much blood Tony might lose. The chip wasn't too close to a vein or artery, but... it's worrying, anyway.

Steve puts the two pieces of metal under their pillows, and tries not to freak out. Maybe he needs to go through one of the medical procedures to stop him from _thinking_ all the damn time. 

There's nothing he can do to stop thinking now, so he stays close to Tony, his ear pressed close into the curve of Tony's shoulder. Tony doesn't move away. Steve closes his eyes, listens to the guards, and _feels_ Tony's heartbeat under his cheek, reassured by its soothing rhythm. Tony's alive for now, and Steve can keep him that way, if he's fast enough. If he's strong enough. He _has_ to be.

The time comes eventually, both too soon and not soon enough, and Steve's pulse quickens in excitement at finally getting to focus on something that's _his_ speciality. If he can get back into the zone of being Steve Rogers, soldier, sometime-spy, then maybe all the junk that's come along with this inter-dimensional reality hopping will dilute some of the darkness creeping into his mind the longer they stay here.

It's more familiar territory, creeping along the hallway. Tony might question everything during downtime, but when it comes down to action, he totally adheres to Steve's orders, and that's probably why they get down to the ground floor without even running into trouble.

Or maybe Rogers and Stark _want_ them to escape to see what they'll do, of course — but there's a point in making any plan where he has to let go. All the _what ifs_ can sink a plan before it even sets off.

Tony does something in the control room which Steve doesn't understand, and then Steve swipes the keycard into the door they were knocked out in front of, three days ago. Steve doesn't even know what he's really expecting when they step through — will there be a giant alternate reality device behind the door? Nothing? Rogers waiting with a platoon of guards?

 _Is something waiting?_ is the thought that catches in Steve's brain and stills his breathing, right up until the moment the doors shudder open and the room... is almost _precisely_ the same as the room they left.

This room is cleaner, and it doesn't have the nanobot fridges along the back wall.

"Well," Tony says, as the doors close behind him, "what did you touch?"

"Excuse me?" Steve says, turning and squinting at Tony. Tony's giving him an inscrutable look and, yeah, Steve's definitely remembering how flimsy the pyjamas they've been given are. He folds his arms over his chest, which drags the fabric up, and Steve resists the urge to tug it down because he's not a fourteen year old girl nervous about his body. "What did _I_ touch?"

"What did you touch?" Tony repeats and shakes his head. "It's not a difficult concept, Steve. When we were in the lab before, I only touched the nanobots. If it's something in this lab that activates the alternate reality — which is a theory which makes sense to me seeing as both rooms are highly similar and bridges like that tend to need activation from both sides — then I didn't touch it. You're the handsy one."

" _Handsy,_ " Steve repeats, and then— _Oh god._ Mortification makes his skeleton abruptly fill with imaginary lead, and all the heat in his body rushes to his skin. Even Tony _I don't notice other human beings_ Stark isn't going to miss _this_ blush. "I'm sorry, I'm exceedingly—Just. _Sorry_. I don't mean to be, I'm just not used to— I'll sleep on the floor if we have to go back to the room, I—"

"Woah, cowboy," Tony says. "Putting aside the fact that you managed to speak for twenty seconds without using an ounce of understandable English, I meant you get handsy with _technology._ I kind of dig the bed hugging."

Steve stares at him for a moment longer, but then shakes himself. "I touched a few items in this section," he explains, and points. "What can you see in here that might be capable of sending people between alternate realities?"

Tony sighs, and rubs his thumb around the pillowcase tied tightly around his arm. "I don't think there's anything big enough in here. Not for the draw of power you'd need for something like this. The amount of power to split a bridge between the universes... It took the tesseract to open up a small window to another side of the _galaxy,_ and that wasn't another reality."

"How much power would you need?" Steve asks, mentally cataloguing the things he did touch that exist in this reality.

Tony sighs, and then squints at Steve. "A lot. And if you were to do it nine or ten times..."

"Would it be enough to destroy, maybe, 94% of the planet?" Steve asks, his heart feeling like the heaviest weight in his chest.

Tony's look, made up of micro-clues as it is, speaks _volumes_.

"This reality's Steve," Steve says, sinking back against one of the tables, his eyes scanning the wall and seeing nothing. "Do you think he'd _really_ burn up the world to find a heart for his Tony?"

"It's selfish," Tony says, quietly, looking at the door like it's the most interesting thing in the world, "but I'm more worried about _our_ world than this one." 

Steve doesn't feel temperature easily, but his skin feels cold at that.

"If this world's nearly all burned up..." Steve starts.

Tony shrugs. "Einstein-Rosen bridges can only theoretically work if the equipment exists on both sides. There's been extensive work done on portals since Thor showed up, and with our current level of technology, he's limited to worlds with a device capable of breaching realities. But that includes ours. If he's burned one world to find my alternate self a heart, how many more worlds will he burn? How many universes?"

Steve looks at him silently, a knot in his throat. Tony looks away from the door, his expression blank and emotionless, and Steve tries not to recoil, because in that expression is a silent accusation. Steve couldn't sacrifice _anyone_ for _anything_ , but an alternate of him _would_. An alternate him _has_. Somewhere in his genetics is destruction and mayhem. _I am become Death, destroyer of worlds_.

"I don't understand what would drive me—" Steve starts, his voice thick, and the words stutter to a dead tail of sound. He shakes his head, and thinks, inevitably, of the ice. If he'd been awake the whole time, trapped for decades with that _sound_ , the water dripping and echoing around his skull, making a natural sound of terrible drums—

— and then if one day, the person who took you out of the ice was _brilliant_ —you'd get attached — only to find out that person was dying—that person unfairly had a hole in their heart—

" _Fuck_ Steve, _breathe,_ " Tony hisses, warm in his ear. Steve hadn't noticed him get so close. "We can't both be anxiety attacks waiting to happen. _Jesus,_ " Tony blasphemes, and it's a mark of how far Steve's fallen right now that he doesn't even have the breath to chastise him, "seriously, perfect genetics and stress can still bite you in your perfect _I can bounce a quarter off dat_ ass."

"Don't use His name in vain," Steve manages, and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, forcing himself to breathe. Inhaling and exhaling in almost robotic form, calculating. "Especially not in a sentence when you're being lewd about my ass."

"It's a beautiful ass," Tony says, and he _pats_ it. 

The spark of nerves, and a stomach clenching _jolt_ of lust, is enough for Steve's brain to short circuit a little, and the splutter actually evens out his breathing, and he shuffles, awkwardly, feeling terribly ashamed. "We're wasting time," Steve mutters, "we—" 

"Should get back to work, yes," Tony says, loudly, rolling his eyes, obviously _entirely_ missing the reason why Steve's stopped silent, mid-sentence.

"Shush," Steve hisses, holding up a hand. "There's someone coming."

"And it's not me," Tony says. Steve muffles the groan he wants to make. Tony flashes him a quick grin, all teeth, before he pads quietly over to the door and flips the switch, plunging them into near darkness, and shuffles back over to Steve.

"Great plan," Steve whispers, deadpan. "What do we do? Hope the footsteps aren't coming this way?"

" _You_ shush for a second," Tony says, and puts his hand over Steve's mouth. Steve resists the urge to be childish and bite him. Or maybe lick him. And yeah, that's not a train of thought Steve needs to be embarking on right now.

Especially if he's capable of burning a planet, if those thoughts are allowed to blossom in the direction they seem to be.

"Damn," Tony says, after a moment. The footsteps are definitely coming closer. "Pepper."

"You sure?" Steve questions, even though they probably should be staying completely quiet and hoping for the best. As if the best _ever_ happens to them.

Even in the low gloom of the room, still faintly glowing a shade of blue from the various equipment in the room, Steve can see Tony's eye roll. "I know that woman's footsteps anywhere," Tony whispers. "Did you know the way someone walks can be as identifying as a fingerprint?"

"We need to be quiet, or hide," Steve mutters back.

"We're _never_ lucky," Tony says. "But I have a plan. Do you trust me?"

" _What_?"

Tony's closer than he was, and he's leaning into Steve now; Steve can just about make out the whites of Tony's eyes. His breath is warm on Steve's skin when he repeats, "Do you trust me?"

And maybe that's too big a question for where they are in their budding not-quite-friendship, and maybe that's too big an ask for Steve to ever answer, because trust, that's a big thing. Trust is being curled up in a ditch, cowering from the sparks of a relentless firefight, and _feeling_ rather than knowing any one of the men around you will throw themselves on a blade for you without hesitation.

Does he trust Tony Stark?

The contradiction of images in Steve's mind is powerful and painful. Tony, who burns through cars worth quarter of a million dollars without a flinch. Tony, who threw himself through space with enough firepower to scar a galaxy, not knowing if he would even survive to be able to try to come back.

He has a lot of information, and he doesn't have _enough_ information, but he also knows the answer, deep and clear in his bones:

Yes, he trusts Tony Stark.

Yes.

Steve nods, because if he _says_ yes out loud, then he has the oddest sensation. That he's saying _yes_ to something bigger than that question, and he doesn't want to. It turns out he probably should have said it when he could, because Tony pretty much systematically destroys his ability to form coherent words.

"Good, because I need you to take your shirt off," Tony says, moving in closer to Steve, looking up at him with all the serious intensity he can manage. "I'm not kidding. Shuck it off. Get those guns out."

"I'm not _armed_ ," Steve just about manages, but he's nodded his trust at Tony, so he slides his shirt off. It drops to the ground like a whisper of a ghost, and Steve automatically starts to bend to pick it up, but Tony stops him.

By kissing him.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve makes a sound of surprise, and it's muffled by Tony's mouth on his. Tony _surges_ into the kiss, using Steve's moment of shock to deepen it. The kiss is hot, passionate, and Steve can feel Tony's fingers slip through his hair at the base of his neck, and Steve's movements are all instinctive — he pushes forwards, his hands resting on Tony's hips as he backs Tony into the nearest table.

Things spill onto the floor, a cascade of clatter, and Tony's mouth leaves his, and Steve's about to actually complain but Tony's mouth just migrates to his neck, his nose nuzzling in at the skin there, and Steve figures out that Tony is _smelling_ him, at the part of his neck he bit into earlier, and that his body seems to quite like it, when the door opens and the room floods with light. Steve lurches as if to break away from Tony, but Tony's fingers go sharp into the nape of his neck. _Stay still_.

Tony's plan suddenly becomes very clear. 

"Oh," Pepper says, from the doorway. "Sorry, sir." She pauses. Arches an eyebrow. "I didn't know you'd be working on the portal tonight."

"We, uh," Steve manages.

"Not exactly working," Pepper says, clutching her tablet and possibly smiling. Steve's too mortified and way too turned-on to form a full sentence. Pepper's eyes graze the part of his body that is still clothed, and yeah, that's definitely a leer too. It's a pity closing his eyes and whimpering would give them away.

"It's not the worst thing she's caught us doing," Tony says, in a fair approximation of Stark's voice. He's letting more laughter into it. More emotion.

"Miss. Potts," Steve manages, scooping up his shirt. Her eyes dart professionally this time to one side, and yeah, this is _clearly_ not a new thing for her. 

"I'll see you at the briefing in the morning, sir," Pepper says, nodding and backing out of the room. There seems to be a knowing smirk on her face as the doors close over it.

"Oh, man," Steve says, not knowing what to feel first. Embarrassment? The still-heavy tang of arousal? The pain that he can never take back the feeling of that kiss, and he'll probably now forever have to jerk off with the image of Tony Stark emblazoned into his brain? All of the above?

" _Oh, man_ seems about right," Tony says, and he's looking right at Steve's crotch.

 _Of course_ he is. Steve wants to squint, facepalm, shuffle guiltily, bunch the shirt over his inappropriate erection, and run away. He does none of them. "I'm not planning to shout and wave it about," Steve grumps, and he can't help the flush rising in his cheek. "We have better things to do."

"And boy is that a shame and a waste of, what is that, nine inches?" Tony sounds a combination of appalled and impressed. "I can see where _I_ might get obsessed with you, woah boy."

"Well, stop seeing," Steve says, "and keep looking. We've not got long left." He's aware he's snapping a little, but he's over-worried about Tony's safety, and over-anxious about the whole situation, and way over-stimulated. 

"No," Tony says, "maybe not." He frowns. "And that's..." He trails off.

"Annoying?" Steve prompts, but Tony's back to staring at the door. It makes sense as the symbol of something to stare at. Doors represent escape, and by goodness do they need to escape.

"Son of a bitch," Tony says. "Son of a _bitch._ "

"My mother was an amazing woman and I resent the implication," Steve says.

"Not you. _Me_."

"I think I met your mom once," Steve says, and oh, that's another thought he really doesn't need. _Tony, you kiss like your mom._ Yep, Steve's taking that one to his grave. "She wasn't a bitch."

"Shut up, Captain Literal. The _door_. The _portal._ The thing in common to both of our universes. Big enough to hide the equipment, common enough to potentially exist in some form in multiple realities." Tony hurries up to the door, splays his palm on the wall next to the panel that opens it, and he frowns, thoughtfully. "I wish we had time to look at it right now."

"We could make time," Steve says, grimly.

Tony throws him an almost fond look. "We got taken down by seven guards. If we're not in the room at the next guard changeover, we might as well kiss our cute tushes goodbye. We need to regroup. Do this again tomorrow night."

Steve's jaw locks uncomfortably. "Do you think we can hold off our alternates from opening you up in the med lab for another day?"

Tony's jaw tenses, and he shrugs, just a little. "We've gotta hope so."

Steve swallows. It is time to get back to the room. He really hopes he can keep Tony safe another day. He doesn't want to even think about the alternative.

When they slide back into the room, unnoticed and thankfully without bleeding on the floor (something Steve panicked about silently during the whole escapade), he can't help but pause at the side of the bed. Tony's already thrown himself under the blankets, curling at the edge of the bed, holding his keycard-slashed arm close to his chest. 

"Get into bed," Tony mumbles. "If you're still, uh, suffering from a condition, I don't mind. I'm a dude. I kinda understand. Been there, done that, bought my dick a t-shirt." Tony hums under his breath for a moment. "Maybe I bought my dick a hooker, not a t-shirt. It's hard to keep it straight."

"That's what she said," Steve says, tentatively. Tony barks out a laugh, and turns in the bed, his eyes glittering at Steve in the dark. 

"Ha, you should hear yourself. Get your perfect ass into this bed before my complicated and clever control room work comes to the end of its cycle and Bizarro Commander Steve can spy on us again," Tony commands.

"So bossy," Steve says, but climbs under the blankets, awkwardly laying his head on the pillow and keeping his body away from Tony's.

Which Tony has to instantly ruin by pushing back _into_ Steve's body.

"Man, you _aren't_ still making Steve Junior salute for me," Tony says, in a grumble. He grabs Steve's arm, and pulls it around him. "So why are you Captain Reluctance? I took the hard-on as a compliment, by-the-by. Just in case you were unsure. Flattery par excellence." He muffles a snicker in the pillows, but not enough for Steve to miss it. "It's not like you were standing solo on that one, either."

Steve blinks. Is he saying... that he... "I'm not too sure what to do with that information," Steve says.

"Of _course_ you don't, Captain Girl Scout," Tony says.

"That's two bad captain jokes in succession," Steve says. "You're losing your touch." 

"Mm, I'd rather have _your_ touch."

"After calling me handsy?"

"Ahhh," Tony says, like he's solved one of his technological problems. "You thought me calling you handsy was an _insult_. You've been sulking about it. You've been _brooding_."

"I don't brood—" Steve starts.

"You're going to try and lie to me?" Tony questions, wriggling his hips, actually snuggling closer into Steve. "Because it would be a lie. You totally want to cuddle me."

"Right now I don't seem to have a choice," Steve sniffs, tugging at the arm Tony has a hold of. He doesn't tug with his full strength, and they both seem to know it.

"Time's nearly up," Tony says, almost sing-song. "We should sleep so we should be ready for tomorrow."

"I—" Steve starts.

"Just shut up and go to _sleep_ , Steve," Tony mutters, sounding almost like he's somehow instantly half-gone himself. Steve can feel Tony's body relax under his almost immediately, and he tries not to shiver appreciatively. He fails, and Tony sniggers silently. 

"You're the absolute _worst_ person I've met this century _,_ " Steve tells Tony, quietly, but he can hear guards in the distance, so he falls silent.

If he spends the remaining time he's awake listening to Tony's heartbeat to soothe himself to sleep, it's definitely not something he'll be telling Tony about.

* * *

Steve wakes up first, and he's definitely still cuddling Tony Stark. One of his arms is trapped under Tony's shoulders, and the other is clutching onto his hip like Tony's the only thing anchoring him to reality.

Tony's still asleep, so Steve lies there for a moment, heart racing until he closes his eyes, and listens for Tony's heartbeat again. It calms him down immediately, and Steve tries not to read too much into that. Tony's heart is what Rogers is after, so of _course_ hearing it intact and in the right place is going to be a reassurance.

It's a complete lie, and Steve has to clench his jaw to resist the urge to touch his lips at the memory of Tony kissing him, but denial is all he has time for.

If he lies here much longer, Tony curled against him, his denial's not going to be strong enough. Steve's already freaking out, because he thinks he knows just how easy it might be, to get wrapped up so far inside Tony Stark there's no way out.

"Time to wake up," Steve says, and pulls his arm out from underneath Tony.

Tony curses under his breath several times, his voice sleep-roughened and low, and Steve does his best to surreptitiously check the bed for blood from the cuts Steve gave them last night. The next ten minutes are almost a dance; under the pretence of passing each other clothes, Steve leans in close and changes the fabric on Tony's arm for a strip of the cloth from Tony's pillow case. All the bedding is white, so it's not totally obvious the pillow cases are missing at first glance. 

Then it's another game of sleight-of-hand, where Steve strips away part of the top-sheet from the bed (there is an unfortunate streak of blood too difficult to explain) and bundles it up with the bloody pillow case fragments. There's nothing much he can do in this room, so he shoves them down his pants and hopes for an opportunity to discard them later.

He pointedly ignores the smirk Tony sends his way when he rearranges the fabric around his crotch, and instead fusses on making sure Tony has the chip they removed from his arm in his pocket, so Rogers will think it's still working.

It's Tweedledum and Tweedledee that escort them to the canteen this time, and they're even less fun that Dumb and Dumber. Steve sort of misses Dumb and Dumber's sullen, sluggish, _why have we been assigned babysitting duty_ stomping. 

"Here's a thought," Tony says, as they pass down the hallway that leads to this Triskelion's canteen. "If the outside is as scorched as the readings say, do you think Bruce is still out there?"

Steve blinks, and shrugs stiffly. Tweedledee and Tweedledum (or should they be Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber?) don't even look interested in the conversation, but that's probably an act. He's seeing spies everywhere, which is only making him jumpy now they have something to hide. The still slightly-blood-stained keycard is in his pocket — he couldn't risk leaving it in the room — and although it weighs nothing, the fear of its discovery is a heavy weight. If Rogers knows they're not playing by the weird rules he's imposed, then he'll accelerate his heart-stealing program, and that's too dangerous.

And that's the thought right there, because _why is Rogers doing this._ Steve and Tony could be overpowered. It doesn't make much sense at _all_ why Rogers isn't just strapping them down and taking what he wants.

It's a distinct problem, and one Steve vows to figure out.

"I only read a little of the Hulk's paperwork," Steve says. "If he was outside Hulked out when it happened, there's every chance he survived it." 

"And the Hulk tends to come out if Bruce is even in danger of a papercut," Tony says.

"And," Steve says, thinking about it, "why keep the Hulk's cage around if there's not a Hulk to go into it?"

Tony looks at him consideringly. "Maybe in case people go stir-crazy. It's kind of the Apocalypse here. People go mad at the end of the world."

"You sound like you have experience," Steve says.

Tony looks over to the queue to the hatch where two men are dishing up something for breakfast, and his eyes go unfocussed. "I've seen a little of the end of one galaxy," he says, in a strained sort of tone. Then he shakes himself and smiles oddly. "Let's get whatever it is they're calling food, huh?" He leans into Steve and smirks, his breath hot on Steve's cheek. "You'll need to keep your strength up for tonight, honeybunches."

Steve colors, and Tweedledee starts choking. It serves him _right_ for eavesdropping.

Stark's hair is longer than Tony's, something that's even more obvious today when Stark joins them at the breakfast table, his hair every which way. 

"Rough night, huh?" Tony quips, as Stark slides his tray down and straddles the bench, blinking sleepily at the bowl of some sort of pale egg-like substance that Steve's been trying not to think of too deeply.

"Mr. Stark had a busy night," Pepper says, smoothly, joining Stark and smiling beatifically at them all. 

"I was _working,_ " Stark moans, and Pepper hides a smirk in a napkin. Steve and Tony exchange a guilty semi-smile that Tony buries in the egg-like stuff so that they don't get busted. This open-emotion version of Tony Stark is quite adorable, really, and Steve takes a second to feel sorry for him that it was a _legitimately insane_ version of Steve that he's become attached to before he remembers Pepper's insinuation last night that Stark's been collaborating with Rogers on the portal too.

Is Stark secretly in on the heart-stealing business too? The egg-like food sits heavily, uncomfortably in Steve's stomach. He doesn't _want_ to think Stark's behind anything. But Stark would have figured out the portal's location, as fast as Tony did. That sort of thing needs a bridge, two connecting points, two points that exist in both locations; Steve's picked up that much, at least. It stands to reason Stark will know the door is the portal.

Does Stark know who's _activating_ the portal, though? That's the question. That's _another_ question, actually, but Steve's stopped counting the number of questions he has. Whatever the number, it's too damn high.

Stark yawns his way through an idle discussion with Tony on the merits of titanium-iron alloys in satellite construction, and Steve spends the whole time on edge, because Rogers slides in next to Tony with a wide smile on his face. Tony, bless his thankfully-still-in-his-chest heart, completely ignores him, which cheers Steve up immensely.

Stark and Tony get so wrapped up in their discussion, the canteen's mostly empty by the time one of them stops to look around. Even Pepper slid off quietly at some point. It's just Steve, Tony, Stark, Rogers, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and maybe twenty guards left in the room.

Steve clocks the number of weapons he can see, and tries not to look as depressed by that realization as he feels. He's good, but he's not _that_ good.

"Ugh," Stark says, actually spitting out a mouthful of the cold egg-like substance. "That's freezing."

"That's what happens when you get distracted when you eat," Rogers tells him. "Hurry up. We've got a lot to do today." He glances at Tony. "We still haven't had Dr. Richards check you over, Tony."

"He still hasn't finished checking _me_ over," Steve says, stretching. "I'm totally fine with letting the good doctor poke me some more in the name of science. Let you two brain boxes work on your Apocalyptic problem some more."

"I really should insist—" Rogers starts. 

"Insist away," Tony says, "but I'm stubborn and he's stubborn and you're stubborn and bizarro Tony here is adorable and not entirely as stubborn as he likes to think he is, so in a stubborn stand-off, we might win."

"It's disturbing how much sense you make, the more time I spend with you," Steve says.

"I know, right?" Tony grins at him. 

"What time _is_ it?" Stark asks. "I have reports running on the magnetic pull forms we requested." He fumbles in his pocket, and pulls out something, and sighs in relief. "It's fine. I can waste another fifteen minutes eating frozen egg-stuff." He stabs some of the aptly well-named _egg-stuff_ onto his fork and chews on it contemplatively, missing for the first ten seconds of dubious chewing that Tony's staring at him, wide-eyed and almost trembling.

"The watch," Steve realizes. Stark pauses mid-chew, and holds out the object in his hand. It's the same as Tony's watch, except the glass is perfect, and the mechanism is ticking away.

"You hold it out longer, someone might _touch_ that," Rogers says, eyeballing the watch. He glances at Steve. "He's picky about it."

"Yeah, because it's my dad's watch," Stark says. "He gave it to me last year, before he died." Stark wrinkles his mouth, like he's still grieving over it. "It was good timing, really. At least he never had to see the world like _this._ " Stark nods his head at the shuttered-up windows.

Steve jolts a little as a hand touches his, and it's Tony, his fingers grasping out wildly, like he's needing to touch something, to anchor _him_ to the world, and that's nothing Steve can deny him. He grabs Tony's hand and laces their fingers together under the table, holding on tight.

"What?" Stark says, dropping his fork and looking at Tony, eyes wide with curiosity. "What am I—"

Tony wordlessly pushes his hand into his inner pocket, and thrusts out the broken pocket watch. "I'm not so precious with mine. In my reality," Tony says, his voice thick as Stark takes the watch and looks in horror, "dad died when I was eighteen. In a car crash."

Stark's voice is quiet when he says, "I'm sorry. I'm—wow. Dad was no peach back then. He got better." He flinches, and his mouth wobbles. "I guess that explains why you're so closed up."

"I'm not closed up," Tony bitches, but it's just an automatic response, because he shrugs after that, and tugs the broken watch back from Stark, pocketing it again with great care.

"That's really interesting," Stark says. Tony flinches. "And terrible. But also, interesting. I mean... if it wasn't for dad, I wouldn't have gone out to the Atlantic missions to find Steve. It was my algorithms that helped us find you," Stark directs to Rogers. Rogers nods tersely, his eyes scraping over Tony's face oddly.

"I was only found in the ice maybe a year ago," Steve says, shrugging stiffly. "You mean... You've been out of the ice for longer than that?"

"A little," Rogers says.

"A _little,_ " Stark says, through a huff of a laugh, "try a couple of decades."

"As pleasant as this conversation is," Rogers says, through clenched teeth, "I really would prefer it if we could get Tony looked at by Dr. Richards."

Steve swallows down the panic. He has to remain calm. He has to distract them, somehow. And maybe... Maybe there _is_ a way to do it. "Wait," Steve says, "so... if the Starks found you, then SHIELD didn't."

"Thank goodness," Stark says, rolling his eyes. "You know I bought this place off them? They were just going to abandon it. Idiots." 

"SHIELD really are idiots," Tony agrees.

"That insult's wasted — Agent Hill isn't here," Steve says.

"I'll make sure to include my statement in my report when we get back," Tony says.

"You guys work for SHIELD, huh?" Stark asks, tilting his head. "You're not the first SHIELD version of us, but you're definitely the nicest so far. _Agent_ Stark headbutted me." Stark rubs his forehead, clearly still remembering the pain.

"We're wasting time," Rogers snits, his jaw clenching tight. Steve knows that warning sign. He's felt it in his own jaw muscles. If Steve doesn't play his cards right, they could be in real danger. There's eighteen guards left in the room now. It's better odds, but it only took seven to take them down last time... 

"So you've not taken up the Captain America mantle since waking up from the ice?" Steve questions.

"Waking up," Stark says, frowning, "that's an odd choice of words, really."

"I slept some of the time," Rogers says. "Not that I was asleep when you found me. You were banging on the ice, I thought the end of the world had come." 

"No, apparently that was later," Tony mutters, gesturing at the window shutters in the canteen.

Rogers throws him an odd look. "In answer to your question, Captain Rogers, no. I have not worn the Captain America suit since I came out of the damn ice floe. If you're telling us that you _have,_ I'm surprised."

"I have," Steve says. "Sorry for the surprise. It's part of one of the things I lied about earlier."

"Steve?" Tony prompts, eyebrows furrowed.

"The Avengers," Steve says. "I take it you've never heard of them before."

Stark shakes his head. Rogers frowns. "You said they were special forces."

"That's only partially true," Steve says. "We're actually a special force of super-enhanced individuals, formed to do the jobs that other people can't. I lead them at the moment under the Captain America mantle. But there are others — the Hulk. Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow. Hawkeye, an incredible archer. Sometimes we even have an Asgard demi-god, Thor, when he's not arguing with his dad or chasing after his insufferable brother. And then there's Iron Man."

"Iron Man?" Stark perks up at that. "He sounds awesome. I gonna presume he's a soldier who wears an exo-skeletal armor?"

"Close enough," Tony says, leaning back in his seat and relaxing, now that he's seen where Steve is going with it all. "Although I'm not a soldier."

Stark's eyes open wide. " _Me._ I'm an... Avenger? In your world?"

Tony smirks, spreading his arms wide. "If I'm only in this parallel universe another four days, I think you're going to want to tap this for knowledge." He pats himself on the side of the brain. "I would think a metal self-contained suit with manoeuvrability, its own environmental control, and precise minute mid-flight direction alterations would be _especially_ useful in a post-Apocalyptic sort of environment." Tony grins lazily at Rogers, and Steve knows that expression; it's a challenge. "Unless there's some nefarious reason for me to undergo medical tests when I feel perfectly fine?"

Rogers flinches.

"Nu-uh, you're not getting a CAT scan, not when I need to know everything you need to know about this Iron Man armor _right now,_ " Stark says, gesticulating wildly as he babbles. "I mean, I had some thoughts during MIT about weaponising an exo-skeletal armor, but the implications—"

"Terrifying, definitely," Tony agrees, as Stark literally tugs him from his seat towards the exit. Tweedledum and Tweedledee follow automatically, looking somewhat bemused, and Steve shoves his hands in his pockets, playing idly with the pulled-out tracking chip for a moment. He smiles at Rogers.

"We best follow them, huh? Make sure neither of them squeak themselves to death with excitement."

"Right," Rogers says, not bothering to hide the loathing in the cool stare he flings at Steve. " _Fine._ "

Steve tries not to pump the air in victory, because he knows what his voice sounds like when things are fine, and Rogers is not using that tone at all. 

As Stark and Tony set up more screens in the lab, chatting excitedly about thrust and propulsion and metal alloys, Steve's actually starting to think that this is all going to work. They'll have another chance to escape tonight. This Iron Man decoy (and yeah, Steve knows the Iron Man schematics _himself_ enough to see the subtle deviations Tony's already sliding into the design) might even give them _two_ nights' worth of leeway to find a way out of here.

He's feeling pretty good about their chances now.

Right up until that night, when their escape goes horribly wrong.

* * *

It's not that Steve's really overconfident, because he always expects for things to go wrong at any given moment in time. But his hopeful feeling is probably the start of their downfall.

Everything runs like normal until it's time to try sliding out of their room. Tony's a little sleepy, probably due to the fact that he and Stark were talking nineteen-to-the-dozen straight from just after breakfast until maybe 10pm (but who knew what time it actually was, because even when Stark occasionally opens the shutters to check a result from his research, the outside stays the same color, the same sludge brown.) Rogers had clearly given up on sending Tony to the medlab for the moment, and he gritted his teeth _deliciously_ when Tony asked Steve to stay while they ran through some of the Iron Man schematics, and he stayed and sulked through nearly the whole day, only disappearing for a couple of hours for apparently important routine duties.

They wait until 2am. Tony slides his jacket on to stop himself from shivering while Steve makes sure the tracking chips are under their pillows, and they both head for the door, Tony hovering close to Steve's back.

The first thing that goes wrong is when Steve and Tony are about to leave the room, and there's a random sound of footsteps.

In the dark, Tony looks worriedly at Steve, and Steve holds up a finger. _Give me a minute._ Taking a deep breath, Steve cautiously slides outside into the hallway. 

It's empty. He ducks back into the room. "Clear. But I think I need to check a little way first," he whispers.

Tony nods. "Be quick," he says.

Steve hurries back out. The hallway's empty, but he's still worried about those footsteps. He's counted footsteps every night, and unexpected ones worry him. He pads along in the direction that he heard the footsteps disappearing, edges around the corner—

—and comes face to face with a very large tranquilizer gun.

"I have to do what he says," Dr. Reed Richards says, his face almost melting into an apologetic grimace. "He has my family."

Steve opens his mouth, maybe to yell to Tony to get him to try and run, maybe to ask _who_ , but he doesn't have time.

Reed fires the weapon, which turns out to be some sort of electricity weapon. It's like being hit by Mjollnir. Pain lances through Steve's spine before engulfing his whole body, and he gets the answer to _who_ as he crashes hard into a wall and smashes to the ground. He can hear the _snap_ of bones cracking, and the adrenaline's running too fast for Steve to immediately know it's his own body making that terrible snapping sound. It's probably his ribs. Rogers stares down at him, his mouth pressed into a smirk.

Steve realizes the truth of all of this even as Reed follows up the blast with another weapon. He swipes at it through the air, but the pain's disorienting; he misses, and a sharp dart hits him in the neck. 

Unconsciousness starts to roll over him. He fights it, even though it feels like he's drowning in wet cement, and he digs his fingernails into the soft flesh of his palm, trying to keep himself awake.

"I won't let you take his heart," Steve says, breathing hard, staring up at his alternate.

Rogers has his face, but he somehow manages to make it look completely different. Maybe it's the emotions simmering behind Rogers' eyes. Or maybe it's Steve's vision, smudging and blurring the white walls of this alternate Triskelion together.

Steve's seen Rogers' expression on his own face, but only usually in odd distorted moments, where he's been in the middle of a mission and the burnished steel of the enemy bases' walls have thrown his own face back at him. Rogers' expression is permanently that rage, that _calculation,_ that Steve only uses when he has a specific enemy in mind. 

"You know, you're adorable," Rogers says, and smiles, showing perfectly white and even teeth. "If I was after his heart, I'd have had it in the first hour you came through the portal."

Steve locks away the word _portal_ , and tries not to let his confusion show. He doesn't want to give Rogers the satisfaction. "Then why didn't you take it?"

"Because it's not what I wanted," Rogers says, and spreads his arms wide. "Didn't you see the outside? It's wrecked. And _my_ Tony. He used to be so brave, and then his heart started to fail and he shrank into a sniveling _mess_. So that's why I started looking _elsewhere_. I haven't been looking for a new heart for _my_ Tony."

And there, Steve has his answer. Exactly why Rogers has been playing this stupid, weird, waiting game.

Rogers isn't looking for another _heart_ for Stark.

He's just looking for a _whole new less broken Tony Stark_. 

The time has just been to get to _know_ the Tony that comes through. To see if he's any better than Stark.

Steve feels terribly, horribly dizzy. He remembers the times in the lab, Rogers leaning into Tony. The _touching_.

Yeah, why bother fixing a broken version when you can get a whole, funnier new one? 

Rogers had laughed so hard at whatever Tony said during their dinners together, and Stark barely got a smile. Holy shit, they're in the base of a complete _madman_.

"You want a whole new Tony," Steve vocalizes, his own heart clenching. He tenses his muscles. Rogers is the same size as him, but Rogers hasn't been an Avenger. There's got to be something in that which gives him the edge in a fight. "You can't have him."

"Brave words," Rogers snarls, "but you're out of time." 

"What do you—" Steve manages to get out, his vision swimming.

He's faintly aware of Rogers dropping to one knee in front of him, of Rogers clamping hold of a handful of Steve's hair, yanking him closer, but the world's a sliding haze. "It's kind of hilarious," Rogers breathes. "I burned this world to a crisp finding a new and better Tony Stark. And I haven't been hiding the evidence very well. When you wake up, I'll be gone, and I think you're going to have a couple of hundred people _very_ mad at me. It's a pity you're wearing my face."

"Wherever you go, they'll find you," Steve manages, the pain blistering through the core of himself, like it's racing down all of his blood vessels and arteries. His limbs feel heavy. Whatever drug Reed has shot him with, it's too strong to fight. "You destroyed this world. There's no place you can take Tony that's—"

—and Rogers' smile makes terrible, terrible sense. Even as Steve slumps further to the floor, and Rogers throws him down the rest of the way, understanding floods through him. 

Rogers isn't wearing the blue and white uniform. He's wearing white pyjamas. 

He looks exactly like Steve does.

Tony won't _know._ Unless Steve can hold on, and get to him.

"You son of a _bitch,_ " Steve snarls.

"Now, now," Rogers says, standing above him, his voice almost sing-song. "Don't insult mom. She did her best for us."

As unconsciousness grabs hold of Steve, hurtling him into obliviousness, all Steve can feel is fear. And not for himself, and not really just for Tony, but for their world. _Their_ reality.

Because Rogers isn't stealing Tony's heart.

He isn't just stealing Tony for himself.

He's stealing _Steve._ Insinuating himself into _Steve's_ reality. They have the same face. They have the same voice. Fury's bonding sessions have been few and far between and no one will be able to tell the difference.

No one will know Rogers is not _him_.

Despair and fear clash together, and Steve's swallowed by the black.

* * *

Steve shouldn't be surprised that when he wakes up, he's in the Hulk's cage.

What he _is_ surprised by is that he's not alone.

More precisely, he's alone on the inside of the cell, but he has a rather substantial audience. Feeling groggy, Steve puts his hand to his head, and tries to lever himself up to his feet. He catches a glimpse of blue at his wrist, and freezes, just for a moment. It must be the lingering effect of the drug making him groggy, because it makes sense — Rogers has put Steve in his own uniform.

Probably got Reed to do it. Rogers will have gone back to the room and grabbed Tony, and activated the alternate reality device and gone _home_ , and, oh god. Rogers burned this reality's Earth to the ground to power that device to find Tony, who _knows_ what else Rogers will do to _Steve's_ Earth?

Dr. Reed Richards is first and forefront amongst the audience, his arms folded, his gaze cold. Behind him, there's at least forty guards, all armed.

Steve swallows. Once they open the door, if they consider him a threat, he stands _no_ chance. 

"I'm not your Commander Stark," Steve yells out, holding up his hands. "You have to let me out. I swear, I'm Steve Rogers, the one from the latest alternate reality, and you have to _let me out_. I have to stop him, I have to—"

"Of course," Reed says, staring him down coolly. "I'm sure this seems like a way for you to get out of this situation, Steve." Steve knots his eyebrows together — it's been a very long time since anyone used his full first name. Reed is still _pretending_ that he knows nothing about this. 

Of course he is. Rogers has his family. Or, at least, this is what Reed believes. But why is Reed still going along with Rogers' plan now that Rogers is gone? Surely he has to suspect Rogers is lying and his family are dead?

 _Reed can't risk it._ Reed can't risk it's _not_ a lie. Reed's going to play along because he has no reason _not_ to.

Reed is a doctor. Steve is wearing the uniform of someone who committed mass _genocide_.

Who are they going to believe?

"We've all seen the evidence now," Reed barks out. "Activating the parallel reality device this last time gave you away. Now we _know_ you've been the one drawing the energy out of the world, making the outside uninhabitable, there's not a soul left alive on Earth that would blame us for taking the retribution out of your hide. Guards, open the door—"

"No, wait," Steve says, backing up, casting about. "There has to be some sort of way we can prove this. The security tapes—"

"You know full well you destroyed them all," Reed says, rolling his eyes. There's a harsh undercurrent to his words.

"But this doesn't make _any_ sense," Steve says. It comes out strong, too forcefully, and yeah, now he really _does_ sound like Rogers. Argh. He swallows back down some of the desperation. "Think about it, people, c'mon. You might not have Dr. Richards' expandable brain, but you're all smart, _use_ some of that mind power and _think_ about it. Why would I bother to activate the parallel reality device again if it meant uncovering what I'd done?"

The guards moving to the door of the cage do slightly hesitate, turning their faces in Reed's direction.

Reed opens his mouth to say something else, but the room turns red, the lights flashing and the alert siren ringing through the room. Reed looks between the lights and Steve indecisively, and then he looks at the guards. "We can kill him later," he says, and he pushes through the guards, extending his arms and spreading them to clear a path out the door.

Reed doesn't assign any guards to the cage, which is either cocky or sensible, and Steve drops immediately to the right panel, digging at it with his fingernails doggedly. He _has_ to get out, and prove his innocence, and if he thinks any farther beyond that, his head is going to explode. 

How could his alternate self get this _cold_? This evil? Steve doesn't understand. Then again, Steve's not in love with Tony Stark. At least, not the kind of love that would drive someone to boil a whole universe slowly to death in the hopes of finding a better Tony. A better _life_.

And yeah, that's not the thought he expected, but that's kind of the theme of the day, so Steve can't even sigh. Because there's something _like_ love fluttering underneath all the tension, something that makes Steve's mouth dry when he thinks about the way Tony's body feels next to his, and that's something that needs time. Something that _deserves_ time, to see if they can make it grow into something better, something stronger. It's something that's been ripped away from him, something Steve didn't even know he _wanted_ until now. He wants to know if Tony will look at him in the misguided way Stark looked at Rogers, and he suspects he's so very capable of returning the emotion.

Although if the relationship's going to accelerate into Apocalyptic-levels, maybe it's best they're separated by however many alternate realities.

Steve just about manages to pull the right panel up from the floor, blood streaming down his fingernails, marring the perfect white floor, when the theme of the day reasserts itself: something unexpected shows up. 

Literally shows up. By smashing through the wall. And Steve finds himself staring, wide-eyed, at the enraged and scowling face of the Incredible Hulk.

* * *

See, Steve's known from the reports that _the Incredible Hulk_ is the full SHIELD press codename for Bruce Banner's angry alter-ego, but he's never actually been able to apply it to Bruce Banner in his own head.

Not that Bruce _isn't_ incredible. He's just also so down-to-earth and approachable that anything fantastical is difficult to add to any of his names. He's just Bruce, part-time genius, part-time scarily effective un-killable rage monster. 

Tony, on the other hand, blithely accepts his title of _Invincible Iron Man_ as often as he can. Which isn't often, because during the press briefings when he does it, the Avengers like to play a game, and try and tip him out of his seat when he tries to use it on himself.

No one tries to tip Thor out of his seat when he calls himself the _Mighty Thor_. Because it's pretty damn true. And also, because Thor's handy with his hammer, especially when he's displeased.

Steve's quite glad that he's stuck with just _Captain America_. Although sometimes he enjoys it when Sam whines that the press reports tag him onto the end like an afterthought. _The Falcon and Captain America_ just sounds like a cheesy bodice ripper romance novel, though; that's the reason Steve has for making sure his name gets said (or typed) first in reports on their Avengers-related activity, and he's sticking to it. (Plus, he does do all the hard work. Sam just swoops around in his kick-ass wings and saves the day last minute. Steve puts all the hard groundwork in.)

Steve's brain always goes off on a tangent when he's facing imminent disaster. It's how he coped with all the myriad beatings he got as a teenager who couldn't say _no,_ who couldn't step back and watch someone else get beaten up; allowing the brain to go off into cloud-cuckoo land allows the body to ignore some of the pain.

He can't afford to do that now.

"YOU!" the Hulk roars, his breath fogging up the glass. He curls his large green hands into giant fists and starts beating on the cage like it's a giant drum, screaming as he does so. "YOU BURNED THE WORLD. TRAITOR!"

"I'm not who you think I am!" Steve yells, but it's like screaming when under heavy gunfire. It just burns the throat and is as useful as silence. He doesn't think the Hulk will ever hear him, until the door behind the Hulk bursts open and some of the guards open fire.

Hulk howls, and then turns on them. Steve casts around desperately. There's nothing in this room, and Rogers has left nothing in his pockets at all. There has to be something he could do. 

He remembers what Tony did, their first time in this cage, the one thing that got Dr. Reed Richards' attention, before their alternate selves came in to greet them, and he goes for it, as the Hulk smashes a row of guards out of the door and turns back to Steve's direction, massive green chest heaving, spittle flying in every direction as he snarls.

"Bruce! Bruce Banner! Hey, I'm talking to you!" Steve yells, taking advantage of the briefest moment of silence as the Hulk takes in a breath to scream at him some more.

The Hulk pauses, his head tilting. "My name's in your files," he grunts, and balls up his fists again to beat at the cage, and yeah, one thing Steve knows is this cage's helicarrier equivalent didn't survive a fall to the ground and a demigod, so some sustained Hulk beating — on the _wrong_ un-protected side of the cage — is probably not going to be a good thing for him.

"Yes, but I _know_ you. At least your alternate reality you," Steve says, finding eye contact with the Hulk and holding it, trying to communicate to the man underneath the emotion.

"Don't listen to the prisoner," Reed yells from behind the Hulk, and Steve thinks the room's falling apart for a moment, but it's just Reed, using his weird elasticity superpower to avoid getting punched in the gut by the Hulk. Reed almost _ripples_ around the room like a snake. A flat snake made of paper. A flat snake made of paper that can tie itself into weird loops and knots to avoid the five successive punches that the Hulk throws at it. "This is precisely what Commander Stark's psychological papers predict he'll do in a situation like this. We have a common enemy here, Dr. Banner."

The Hulk pauses from throwing punches at Reed, and Reed slowly slithers back in on himself, unstretching and reforming as his usual lanky self. He's breathing shallowly, like it's a lot of effort to turn himself into a fantastical pretzel, and Steve logs that fact away just in case he ever has to fight him. Although with the Hulk around, Steve's looking at a future of becoming _paste on the floor_ unless he can get through the Hulk's thick, green skull.

"You don't have an enemy here at all," Steve insists, stepping forwards even though if the Hulk shatters the cage in the next few punches (and the cage is _definitely_ shatter-possible, because in _his_ reality it's cracked and ragged) it'll land him in the most danger. "I swear I'm not your Steve Ro—Your Commander Stark," Steve says, catching himself. Because the asshole with his face is the furthest from being Steve Rogers that a person can ever be. "Bruce. In our reality, you told me how you keep control. You told me your secret."

Hulk side-eyes Steve warily. "Hulk has no secret," he starts, snarling. 

"Your secret to your control is that you're always angry," Steve says, staring at him. "Does _Commander Stark_ know that? Because if I'm extrapolating this red alert stuff correctly, you're only known to him as a threat. To me, you're a friend. A good friend."

The Hulk stares at Steve, like he can read the truth in Steve's face, and Steve's trying his best to show that he _can._ "I've never told anyone that," the Hulk says, eloquently, but that's because it's not the Hulk. It's Bruce Banner, as he's already shrinking to his human size. "Reed, I'm telling you, this isn't Commander Stark." Bruce holds up his ragged pants with one hand. 

"Reed knows that," Steve says. "Don't you, Dr. Richards?"

Reed's face slackens, somewhat disturbingly literally, and Bruce turns to him, cool rage simmering under the surface. 

Reed swallows. "He has my family," he protests, weakly.

"Where?" Bruce demands. "Because if they were here, you'd have found them. I've spent the last year scouring the planet, Reed. No one's left except for the Helicarrier crew, and if Sue was there, she'd have moved heaven and _earth_ to be with you here."

"But—" Reed starts, and he looks between Steve and Bruce worriedly. "He _promised_."

"The crazy version of me who burned up the world _promised you,_ " Steve says, heavily.

Reed folds in on himself, hands expanding to completely cover his head, and he might be shaking, or he might be crying, or he might be laughing. 

"I haven't been able to make it past the Triskelion defences for years," Bruce says, obviously plumping for action over reaction. "How much energy did the last alternate reality jump take?"

"I'll tell you," Reed says, straightening back up, "if you give me one good reason why I'm not calling the guards in to throw you into the cage with, uh, Steve. They'll listen to me. I was Commander Stark's right-hand man."

"Because I'll Hulk out and turn you all into paste," Bruce says, one hand on his hip.

After a beat of silence, Reed says, "Good answer."

"Does this mean I get out of this cage yet?" Steve asks.

"You'd just get under my feet," Reed says, elongated fingers working through the figures on the screen in front of him. Then he shakes his head, over and over. "The portal's still open," he says. "For three days longer. It was just on mute. That's how he's been doing it, I told him, I told him—"

"He's been keeping the portal open for a week?" Bruce asks, pushing in alongside Reed. "No wonder the power drain was phenomenal—"

"—it explains the way the alternates snapped back," Reed says, "it's a failsafe to the original device. It's the safe minimum time to prevent entropic cascade failure."

"Do we even know if that's an actual thing, or is it still a theory?"

"Commander Stark was smart enough not to risk it."

"Do we know who made the original?" Bruce says.

"I did work on the prototype, but AIM completed the construction."

"Well, Hulk triple-checked their headquarters. They're all gone. You're the world's remaining expert of it. Top of about five hundred people. Go you."

"Commander Stark did some AIM infiltration work in the 90s," Reed says, making more figures dart across the screen. "His cognitive intake rate is as accelerated as his physical enhancements; he'll have been able to make it function, but without any sort of proper scientific background, I daren't imagine the damage he's done with the energy intake."

"You don't have to imagine it, doctor, look out the damn window once in a while," Bruce grits out.

" _Hello,_ " Steve says, pointedly. 

The two scientists don't even turn around. Steve slumps against the glass wall of the cage and stares at them, hoping maybe _his_ cognitive intake rate is natural and not something that needs a couple of decades practice, and that he can pick up something of what they're talking about. It's always a headache that he's continually around incredibly smart people. He's not stupid, but sometime he _feels_ like he is.

"We need to follow him through," Bruce says. "Simple as. Bring him back to face charges for what he's done. The world's a small pool of people. Who deserve retribution."

"They deserve to be Avenged."

All three of them turn at once to see Stark standing in the doorway.

He looks almost _white_ with how pale he is. Like a ghost, that could blend into the Triskelion's super-white walls. 

"Ah, Tony Stark, I got your message," Bruce says, heading over towards him. "Binary code. Very clever. I appreciate your help finally getting into this facility."

Stark flinches, and steps back. "Message?"

"My Tony sent it," Steve says, from the cage. Tony didn't _tell_ him that he had done that, but... it makes sense. Tony and Bruce are two of the Avengers who _don't_ need Fury's convoluted bonding sessions, that's a definite.

It makes this universe feel _extra_ weird that Bruce and Stark don't know each other.

"We need to go through the portal," Stark says.

"Doctor Stark," Reed starts, "your heart won't—"

"I'm _going,_ Reed," Stark snaps, "because I recoded the damn thing like I should have done the _first_ time it spat out our interdimensional twins. Without me, you'll lose a good couple of days unlocking it, and who _knows_ how far Steve will go." He edges a look over to Steve, and Stark's heart might have had a hole in it for a while, but _now,_ now it's broken. "I'm sorry," he adds, nodding to Steve, and running his hand over a panel on the wall, opening the cage.

Steve hurries out before Bruce and Reed change his mind. "I'm sorry he's not the Steve Rogers you deserve," Steve tells him. "Let me go through the portal. _Please_."

"You need to rescue your Tony from him," Stark says, nodding.

"And you need to bring Steve back," Reed says, urgently.

"Dead or alive," Bruce grunts.

"No, alive," Reed says, "he still might know where my family are."

" _Reed,_ " Bruce says, locking his gaze on Reed's face. "If they were here, I'd know. Believe me."

"They're alive on my side," Steve says, and he stares at Reed, more _Rogers_ in him than he'd like when he continues, "and if Commander Stark stays there too long, who knows what will happen? Will my Tony be enough for him? Or will he continue to burn up universes, looking for the perfect one?"

"I should have seen this," Stark starts to mutter, and then he leans against the wall and starts to swear.

"Hey," Steve says, "I have a policy concerning when the smartest person in the room starts to swear."

Stark offers him a weak smile, and shakes his head a little. "I'm not the smartest person in the room. Reed can expand his brain, and Bruce is a genius." 

"Bruce turns green when peeved and Reed helped your insane husband to continue burning the world and also aided with his sideline in human trafficking," Steve says. 

"And _I_ knew where the device was and didn't smash it to pieces," Stark says, almost shouting. "I should have _known_ it was the cause of the world being sent to hell. I didn't know." He looks away, shaking his head. "I didn't _want_ to know."

"We can fix this," Steve declares, stepping back from Stark, staring all three of the scientists down. "Stark, take me to the device. I'm going through, and I'm going to bring Rogers back. And Bruce, you're coming with me, along with a platoon of _your_ guards."

"It's sort of your fight," Bruce starts. 

"Sure," Steve says, "but while I'm bringing _me_ to justice, there's a whole abandoned Triskelion in my universe with a bunch of salvageable stuff. I'm not entirely sure, but I'd guess five fridges full of nanobots might be a nice start towards rebuilding your planet."

Bruce and Reed and Stark exchange a look. 

"It's best we go through quickly," Bruce says. "Sooner we can get back, the sooner we can figure out how to prematurely close the portal."

"Great," Stark says. "Let's go."

"Not you," Steve says, and he's impressed about the acoustics of the room until he realizes Reed was the echo. 

"Your heart, Tony," Reed says, awkwardly.

Stark shakes his head. "No—"

"Your Steve let you down," Steve says, moving in front of Stark, taking his elbow softly. Stark's eyes fly to his, and he visibly relaxes, pushing into Steve's touch like it's only second nature. And to Stark, it probably is. "And he let this world down. It needs a leader to salvage it. You can be that leader. I know you can."

"Yeah?" Stark asks. "How do you know that?"

"Because you're Iron Man," Steve says. 

Stark laughs. "A few problematic diagrams — don't think I didn't notice how your Tony was trying to throw me off — doesn't make me some sort of superhero. I'm no superhero."

"You said it yourself when you came through that door," Steve says, pointing at it. "The people here will want the planet's devastation Avenged. You're an Avenger, Tony Stark. Through and through."

Stark smiles at him, and the silence between them is comfortable. Behind them, Bruce is quietly ordering Reed to assemble some guards down the hall. 

"I watched some of the security tapes before coming in this room," Stark says. "Your Tony really loves you."

Steve starts to shake his head.

"Don't shake no like that," Stark says, a note of sternness in his voice that tells Steve he's right to think this Tony Stark can lead this broken world to some sort of future, however fractured it might be. If anyone can rebuild the human race from the ground up, it's probably Tony Stark. "The way he held you at night."

" _I_ was the one cuddling him," Steve admits, trying not to shuffle too guiltily.

" _He's_ the one that dragged you to him," Stark says. "I know you're not _together_ in your reality, but you should consider it. As long as one of you doesn't turn psychotic..." He smiles, wryly. "There's a reason we're together in every universe we've looked at." 

"Because Commander Stark was targeting universes like that?" Steve says. 

"Not even possible," Stark says, shrugging. "It's impossible to direct the device to anywhere with parameters as specific as that. When I worked on it, it could simply only connect to a universe with a similar device. It isn't always a Triskelion, although most of the time it is; it's just the Triskelion in a different location. They're not all in Florida like we are." 

"This is Florida?" Steve tilts his head, glances at the nearest shuttered window, high up in the room.

"Why? Where is your Triskelion?"

"Alaska."

Stark considers it. "Steve would _hate_ that," he says, shaking his head, thoughtfully.

"Steve _does,_ " Steve says, wryly, thinking of that high room with the windows and the long way down to the ice. Yeah. He feels a little better he's actually _not_ in the universe with that sight. As Stark pulls a face, Steve thinks about things. "How did he ensure that he found a universe _with_ a Steve and Tony in?"

"Coded it with our DNA, I'd imagine," Stark says, rubbing at his beard thoughtfully. "Think of it this way. How many decisions do you make every day?" 

"Uh," Steve starts, and then frowns. "A lot?"

"You waste a hundred conscious decisions on small things. Am I going to go left or right? Take the quick route or the scenic route? Do I want Fruit Loops or grits for breakfast? Should I say _hello_ or _hi_?" Stark shrugs. "And that's just _you._ Every person, every _cell,_ makes thousands of choices a day. And each of those choices spawns a universe. Once you find one universe with a Steve and Tony, it's easier to find other ones; you're in the right sector of possibility."

"I guess I see. But does it search by name, or—" 

"I'm guessing Steve will have programmed it to physically haul through a Steve and Tony, probably with my own DNA programming from last year when I still thought I could save the world, but..." Stark shrugs uselessly. "It shouldn't be statistically _possible_ for every Steve and Tony to be a couple — we can target DNA, but love's too intangible."

"Then you'll have thought—" Steve starts. "I mean, until we came through..." 

"Before you we had eight other pairs, all crazy in love with each other. Those odds _should_ be astronomical."

"You're saying it's fate?" Steve rolls his eyes.

"No," Stark says. "I'm calling it _good._ Even in _amongst_ the crazy, what Steve and I had... it was always good." He leans in close, and tilts his head, a question on his face. 

His own mouth dry, Steve nods assent, and Stark leans in the rest of the way, kissing him lingeringly, just pressing his mouth to Steve's.

It's a goodbye kiss. Steve can give Stark this. He can let Stark say goodbye to Rogers like this.

"It's time to go," Bruce says from behind them, quiet but commanding.

Steve nods at Reed, and they both follow Stark down the hallway to the device.

They get halfway there when they come across their first obstacle.

It turns out Pepper Potts can not only do everything backwards and in heels; in _this_ universe, she's also quite handy with large weapons.

From the little he _does_ know about Pepper Potts, it's surprising. Then again, in this universe, it's sort of the end of the world. People change when that happens. They get desperate.

" _Down,_ " Steve yells, tackling Stark to the ground as she opens fire. Bruce Hulks out immediately, and hauls her weapon away from her. Steve tries not to feel too bad about Hulk throwing her backwards down the hallway, especially when her head cracks against the wall, but she's got to be _some_ sort of idiot, if her alternate self let Tony Stark go.

Oh, man, Steve really needs a vacation after all of this to get his brain sorted back right.

There's no further obstacle. That's a lie, there's two obstacles — Dumb and Dumber — but they turn tail and flee at the sight of Hulk. In a moment that might have made Steve smile in another life, they careen straight into Tweedledee and Tweedledum, sending all four of them clattering into the floor.

Steve just rolls his eyes. This is what this world's future is going to be made up of. _These_ people. Steve really hopes Bruce is wrong and there's more than five hundred people left on this planet.

"You're good to go," Stark says, and pushing buttons on a panel for two minutes. The door swishes open. It's just the room Steve remembers from before, no nanobot fridges, but basically the same room that he recalls from _his_ Triskelion.

"Are you sure?" Bruce questions. Some guards are starting to approach, obviously sent by Dr. Reed Richards, and they're especially hesitant when they see Steve. Steve frowns.

"I'm not the planet-killing Steve," Steve says, gesticulating wildly.

Some weapons are raised, tentatively.

Bruce laughs at the expression on Steve's face, so it must be somewhat hilarious.

"The door doesn't look any different until you step through it," Steve says. "At least, that's what happened to me."

Bruce nods, more solemn now. "After you, Commander."

"It's Captain," Steve says. He nods at Stark, one last time, and then steps through the portal —

— and comes face to face with the Hulk.

"Huh," Steve says. "Is this going to suck? I don't want it to suck."

"That's what she said," a familiar voice says, delightedly.

"Tony?" Steve steps forwards, and stills again when the Hulk tilts his face. "Did I come back into the right alternate reality?"

Tony steps around from the Hulk and smiles. There's a bandage on his arm, a bruise on his face, and Clint, Natasha and Thor are hovering behind him. "Took me about one minute to figure out it wasn't you," Tony says. "I made one dick joke, _one_ , and he told me to shut up."

" _I_ would have told you to shut up," Steve says, squinting.

"Yeah," Tony says, "but he _frowned._ "

" _I would have frowned._ "

"I know," Tony says, shrugging infuriatingly. "But then... I don't know how to explain it. You're not a one-expression kind of guy. You have all these..."

"Micro-clues," Steve suggests, because that's always what he's used to describe _Tony._ It's only when he's saying it when he realizes it might be true in reverse.

"Yeah," Tony says, latching on. "And although you frown at the dirtier efforts in my repertoire, there's also this dimple thing you do here—" He reaches out and brushes his thumb over Steve's cheek. "—that says you're repressing laughter, because I'm totally hilarious. And then there's a pulse here—" Tony touches two fingers to Steve's temple, "—which tells me you're mad at yourself for _finding_ me so funny. And your neck goes a little tense, because you're trying not to laugh and encourage me to tell more dick jokes."

"Oh," Steve says, his face heating up as he wonders about all the things he might be giving away right now.

Tony shrugs, and Steve slowly stops feeling embarrassed, because Tony's got a micro-clue of his own showing; a small furrow of the brow. He only uses it when he's genuinely concerned about someone's safety.

He's using it because he's been genuinely concerned about _Steve's_ safety. 

Which means there's probably a good reason for it.

"Where is evil me now?" Steve says, as the Hulk starts to shrink back down. "And I have to move quickly, Bruce, uh, is coming through."

"He got my message," Tony breathes, clapping a now human-sized Bruce on the shoulder. "You're awesome in every universe, my man." 

"Thanks?" Bruce says, in a tremulous question, blinking. Steve moves to one side, and that's when Bruce from the _other_ reality comes through, guards flanking him from either side. Reed Richards follows up behind him — apparently the only way to get the guards through from his tired expression — and he blinks between the two Bruces in as much as confusion as _Bruce_ is.

Yeah, even Steve's confused now. He mentally renames the alternate Bruce _Banner_ in his head.

"Hi Bruce," Tony says, bounding forwards, hand outstretched, "I'm Tony."

"Never thought I'd acquire the skill of meeting someone for the first time twice in one hour," Banner says, but shakes Tony's hand. "Uh, not to be rude, but you were sort of being accompanied by a psychotic nutjob last we heard?"

"Oh, him," Tony says, his eyes lingering on Steve as he says, "Thor took care of him. Can you believe we were missing three days before these goons came looking for us? Join the Avengers, Fury says. Have a team, enjoy people _having your back._ "

"I saw some of the security footage. Captain Rogers had your back pretty well," Reed says, rocking on his heels and looking around the large octagon room with fascination. It looks completely different to bizarro world version. Reed twitches at the sight of the windows, and the spread of ice and snow below. Ha. It's not just Steve that thinks the windows are creepy. "And your front," Reed adds. "And—"

"— _and_ we'll talk about that later," Tony says, hurriedly, actually _shuffling_ on the spot for a moment _._ Steve can't help his smile. Natasha looks intrigued, and Steve's smile fades.

Which makes her look _more_ intrigued. 

"Is that Dr. Reed Richards?" Natasha quietly asks Clint in the background. "I once tried to knock him out. Tricky fellow. Very elastic."

" _Tried_?" Clint questions. 

"Succeeded," Natasha elaborates, grinning predatorily at him.

"One hammer blow to his temple made him stop spluttering that he was the real Steve Rogers," Thor says, swinging his hammer idly from one hand.

" _One_ hammer blow?" Steve says, and wrinkles his nose. "And where's Commander Stark now?"

"Commander _Stark_?" Clint questions, as they all turn to where there's a... empty corner.

"Not possible," Natasha says, and starts running.

"Thor usually needs to smack me twice to knock me out," Steve says, taking one moment to take a deep breath before continuing. He squints at Tony. "We figured it out in the elevator." Tony's eyebrows leap to his hairline. "We were there an hour. It was _boring_."

"We should split up, cover more ground," Clint says, pulling out comm devices from a side pouch.

"Reed," Steve says, "you know the Triskelion. Is there a self-destruct device on your side?"

"The engines," Reed says, going pale. 

"Right," Steve says. "You, the ten guards at the front, with me. Unless you want to be blown sky high?" Two of the guys at the front shake their heads. Steve doesn't stop to question if they think _he's_ going to blow them up or if it's the _base_ blowing up that does it; the outcome is the one he wants, so he's not going to question it too much.

"Wait," Tony says, "how do you know that he's—"

"I might not be married to you, and I might be relatively sane, but the one thing we have in common: he's still me," Steve says. "That's where he's going."

"Please say it's not for some cheesy reason like _if he can't have me, no one will,_ " Tony says, unhappily.

"Fine," Steve says, "I won't say it. Reed, lead us on. Bruce, start throwing back supplies, the nanobots are in the lab that looks like that. The more you can get, the better for your universe. I'm guessing if this thing blows—"

"—you've got at least thirty minutes," Reed says, nodding at Banner. "Does this Triskelion have a similar layout?"

"It's dirtier and the windows don't have shutters on them," Steve says, nodding at the tall, imposing windows of the octagon room, "but yeah."

"Take that door," Reed says, "then the second door on the left, and the next door on the right. It'll take you to the room you can currently see through the portal, but it'll be _this_ universe's version. You'll have to bring the equipment back here to throw it through; the portal only works from this side."

"Got it," Banner says. He arches an eyebrow. "You're not helping?" 

"No. I'm going back," Reed says, and heads to the portal. "Gotta start looking for my family." He hurries away through the portal without looking back. The disappearing process is weird. For a moment, it looks like Reed is just walking into the lab on the other side of the portal, but then he disappears around the corner and he's just... gone. Steve finds himself watching, waiting for Reed to pass around the tables, back into his sightline, but he doesn't appear at all. 

"That's weird," Banner says. From the guy who turns into _the Incredible Hulk,_ it's a statement. "Good luck, Steve," Banner tells him, and then jogs off with his own guards in the direction Reed points out.

"Bruce," Steve says, as he fits one of Clint's communication devices into his ear, "keep Tony safe. I mean it. I've gone through too much not to know he's safe right now. Take him as far away as you can. And not through that door." He points at the door that's still open to the alternate reality, and tries not to be glad _that_ the Avengers have only just found them. Because if they'd gotten stuck through there, in that Apocalyptic mess of a world, Steve wouldn't be able to _breathe_ until Rogers was _confetti._

"Got it," Bruce says.

"Hey," Tony protests, "don't I get a say in this?" 

Bruce eyeballs Tony. And then the _Hulk_ eyeballs Tony. Tony makes a sound in the back of his throat, and throws a _very_ resentful look in Steve's direction, but Steve steels his glance in return.

Steve will apologize later. When Tony's _safe._

"Let's go," the Hulk grouches, and grabs Tony by the scruff of his neck, hauling him off to one of the side doors which _won't_ strand them into bizarro world.

Steve turns, to stop himself from watching Tony leaving, and gestures at the guards. "You heard the giant green man. Let's go."

* * *

Human guards, it turns out, aren't the _best_ thing to take with you when you're after a super-serum enhanced quarry. 

Nope. 

After five minutes of blundering around, Steve orders them back the way they came. They're slowing him down.

His human anchors gone, Steve speeds up, and manages to catch glimpse of Rogers, bright white against the dirty walls of their Triskelion. He thunders after him without thinking. It's a sign of how too-used he has been to having superheroes have his back.

Natasha, Clint and Thor _do_ have his back. Hopefully they're finding alternate ways to the engines; there are six different ways to the centre of Triskelion, and splitting up was their best shot at finding Rogers. 

Steve's glad it's him.

Unfortunately, he and Rogers can run so fast that they both make it to the engine room before anyone else. 

And Steve's running so fast, trying to keep up with him, that Rogers manages to grab Steve and haul him over the walkway, down to the clutter of the engine room below, before gracefully jumping down to join him.

Steve hauls himself to his feet, spitting blood to one side, his ribs reminding him that, yeah, they're probably still broken.

"I guess it's just you and me," Steve says, moving his weight from side to side, readying for the inevitable fight. "Should be interesting." 

"Yeah," Rogers says. "Especially as you think this will be an even fight."

"What do you mean?" Steve asks, because apparently his evil self likes to brag. He thinks about the attention when he became Captain America, and the demands for autographs, and the swooning girls. He can see why attention could become addictive.

"I have a secret weapon," Rogers says. "The GPS tracing chip I had the guards put in your arm on the first night? The chip I put into your arm has a second function." He smiles and holds up a small remote. "There's no point even trying to fight me."

He pushes the button of his remote, and, nothing happens.

Rogers stares. Steve feels a surge of victory that's probably way too soon, but it gives him hope: Rogers hadn't predicted his actions. He has a _chance._

"We took them out," Steve says, rolling up his sleeve. Even though he's been healing fast, there's still a jagged line of the cut. "What, wouldn't _you_ in my place?"

"The other eight didn't," Rogers says, staring at Steve's arm, honestly perplexed. 

"The others weren't Avengers," Steve says, staring back coolly.

"Right," Rogers says, "you're still Captain America in this world. It's just a costume and a shield, _Captain._ Fabric and metal, no matter how extraordinary, it doesn't make you _any_ better than me. We're equal in this fight, except for one thing — I want to survive more. Then all I have to do is put my uniform back on, cry about how the _evil_ Commander Stark tried to kill me, and no one will suspect I'm not you."

"Tony already figured it out once," Steve says. "But putting that fact to one side, you're almost right. The spandex, the Vibranium, it doesn't make us any different from each other. But that's not what being an Avenger is about."

"Yeah?" Rogers snarls. " _Do_ enlighten me, before your brain's too smashed in to work anymore."

"Being an Avenger means you're not alone," Steve says. "We'll see how _long_ you can fight before they turn up."

"You think _anyone_ will ever turn up for you?" Rogers questions, clenching and unclenching his fists in preparation to fight. "Because they don't turn up. They leave you. In the ice. Sinking. For so long. For years, and years—"

"That's your trauma," Steve says, and throws himself forward. "Not mine!"

Steve restricts himself to moves he hopes Rogers won't know, scenarios Rogers won't have been part of. The Battle of New York. The reptilian way the Chitauri moved. The way ricocheting off walls can give the angle and lift to a kick that he needs. Rogers won't have fought or trained with Thor, or the Black Widow, and one of Natasha's signature thigh moves nearly works well on Rogers, but Rogers hasn't wasted the two decades he has on Steve. 

He knows other moves. More than Steve's been able to pick up in his action-packed year since being defrosted. Worse, he knows he injured Steve earlier, and he takes advantage of that, solidly smashing Steve in the chest. There's an ominous crack. More ribs following suit with their neighbors.

Steve almost drowns in the pain, and Rogers takes advantage; Steve ends up with his knees bent backwards, with Rogers' thighs bracketing his chest, and Rogers' fist in his face. _I'm sorry, Tony,_ Steve thinks. Steve fights, because that's who he _is,_ but the world is sliding sideways and he can't stop it. There's nothing that can stop this. 

"Hey! Stop!"

 _Tony._ Tony's voice floats through Steve's hazy, pain-filled fog, and Rogers pauses from punching Steve, instead pushing an elbow down hard on his throat. How did Tony get away from Bruce? Steve can't fight anymore, but he still struggles in Rogers' grip.

"What can I do to make you stop?" Tony demands. "To keep him alive?"

"Nothing," Rogers snarls. " _Nothing_."

"What if I promised to stay with you," Tony says. "What if I promised to lie to everyone and say you were _Steve_ , that you're _him_? In return, you gotta stop hitting him. You gotta let him go back through the portal. I just want him alive. Then you can have me."

Tony holds out his hands, imploringly.

Rogers frowns. "How do I know this is you? That _you_ ," Rogers jabs at Steve, "didn't force _my_ broken Tony through and cut his hair?" His lip curls. "I know how to prove it. Come here."

"What?" Tony says. 

"I can kill him _right now,_ " Rogers says, and digs down even more. Steve's fingers scramble over the floor tiles, looking for purchase which isn't there.

Tony moves closer, hesitantly. Rogers reaches up with one hand, and rips one of Tony's sleeves off. There's the cut on his arm, matching Steve's, where Steve cut out the tracking chip. "Is that enough?" Tony questions. 

" _No,_ " Rogers says. "You two were close all the last day. You could have noticed the blood that close up and copied him. No, there's one other thing. Something you love _much_ too much to ruin." He yanks Tony further down by his collar, his hand sliding into Tony's jacket. He reaches into the inner pocket and pulls out Howard Stark's pocket watch.

It's shattered.

Underneath Rogers, Steve can't help the whimper of pain, because he'd been kind of hoping it was Stark, playing the part. Because this— It's beyond anything Steve can wrap his mind around.

Rogers smiles, wide and mocking. "My Tony would _never_ smash the watch. Poor, sentimental fool."

"He's not—" Tony starts, which just makes Rogers smile even more in satisfaction.

"Help me tie the Captain up, Tony," Rogers says. "Let's get him back to the portal before your interfering friends... interfere."

"I have cuffs," Tony offers.

Rogers shakes his head. "I don't trust any technology from this side. Not until I get a chance to look at it. Give me your jacket."

Tony hands over the jacket, and Rogers starts ripping it into strips. Tony looks down at Steve, and his expression is cold. Blank. If Steve had the energy to cry, he would.

"I'm just keeping you alive," Tony says, his voice oddly flat.

Steve doesn't have the energy to do anything. He tries to move, but he can only manage to sway a little, to kick around as they tie him up and then start to haul him back to the portal. Rogers pauses part of the way back to the lab and yanks the communication device out of Steve's ear, shoving it into his own. 

"Roger that, Hawkeye, prisoner is in my hold," Rogers says pleasantly, touching his ear. "Preparing to return subject to original universe — apparently there's something called entropic cascade failure that will damage our universe if two Steve Rogers inhabit a similar space? Yes. Of course. ETA two minutes."

Rogers hauls Steve into the room, and over to the door, and Steve braces himself as Tony leans against the wall, and Rogers flings him forward without even a dramatic, angst-filled, evil monologue. Steve doesn't know what he's bracing himself for. Maybe an angry platoon of guards. Or Bruce's face. He's still wearing the blue and white uniform. If he's unlucky, they'll think he's Rogers, and kill him on the spot.

But he lands in the dusty version of the lab, no one in sight, and he frowns. What the hell? He scrambles up to his knees, and acting on instinct, instantly throws himself to one side, out of the way of the door like Reed did, so they can't see him.

"That's really weird," Rogers says, loudly. "It's like you can see that he's there, and then one moment, bam, gone. It would be much too sad not to use this device again, don't you think, my _love_?"

Steve flinches at the tone in Rogers' voice. It's him, but devoid of anything. Devoid of _everything_. 

"I promised to stay with you," Tony says, unevenly. "And if this is what you're hellbent on, I'll be at your side. You'll forgive me if I try to find a new way to power it."

"You mentioned a tesseract," Rogers says. "I'm interested in that." 

"Of course," Tony says, tightly. And then: "Mr. Thor. Stand down. The danger's over."

 _Mr._ Thor? What—Steve's stomach is never going to be right, ever again. It could be some sort of code that Tony's worked out with Thor, but now Steve's brain has a moment to enjoy oxygen, he's starting to think properly again.

The Hulk had promised to keep Tony away.

If Stark had quickly trimmed his hair and pulled on a less-baggy suit, all he'd need to do _was_ cut his arm and smash the watch to look like Tony. Steve _might_ cry if he had any breath left, but even super-soldiers need healing time. He struggles to a sitting position and listens more carefully. _Is_ it Tony? Is it Stark? Pain sings across Steve's senses, and he blinks it away. This feels like one of the most important moments of his life; the fact he's adrift and hurting too much to be _active_ in it is destroying him.

It's Tony Stark's voice, that's for sure. And Steve can't see his face, and so doesn't know for sure which Tony is out there. 

"I think it's closed," Rogers is saying from outside. "Obviously we need to file a report, but I'm ready to sleep for a week."

"Maybe," Tony Stark says, "but hey, look at that—"

"What?" Rogers asks, his voice thinning. He's moving farther away. Towards the high windows, maybe.

"C'mon, don't you remember the Apocalyptic wasteland of bizarro world?" Tony Stark asks. "Look at how nice it is to be home."

" _Ice,_ " Rogers hisses, low and upset, "why are you— _No._ There's no way. There's _no way._ You're not strong enough. You're not. Not to cut yourself, to smash your dad's watch—"

"Oh, sweetheart," Stark says, and yeah, that's who it is. It's definitely Stark. It's brave, heart-broken Stark. "I told you I had cuffs," he adds, and Steve manages to drag himself back through the door soon enough to see Stark cuff himself to Rogers, locking his hands around Rogers' waist, and cuffing his wrists closed behind him. "I've been with you decades, _husband._ And you might know me, but that goes both ways — I know you. Just the sight of the ice will keep you where I need you for long enough, but I have a little extra insurance." Stark grins, teeth wide, no humor on his face, and he clicks something.

A small remote, like the one Rogers tried to use on Steve.

" _No,_ " Rogers says.

" _All_ the tracking bugs were equipped with something a little extra, and we _all_ had one installed," Stark tells him, flatly. "I love you, Steve, but I'm not blind. Someone had to be activating the device. Reed wouldn't risk the planet when he thought his family were still alive on it. I knew it had to be you."

Rogers collapses a little against Stark. Presumably the _little extra_ is some sort of tranquilizer. The bizarro universe did seem to favor that as a weapon. "I did it for _us._ "

"A sweet lie, but a lie nonetheless, seeing how quick you were to replace me," Stark says. "And though it says bad things about me, I still love you. You should probably know that before we go. I love you. But our love is apparently world-destroying crazy." 

"Go?" Rogers blusters, and he tries to back away, but Stark holds strong, anger blazing in his face. "You closed the portal. After you came through?"

Stark nods. "I sent Bruce and Reed and the guys back home. They've got a world to rebuild, and thanks to these people, enough nanobots to have a fighting chance."

"What's the point in telling me this? We can never go back to it," Rogers hisses. "So let me go, let me take out this planet's counterparts before the entropic cascade failure gets us, and we'll take over this place. _Be_ this universe's Steve and Tony. You and me. How about it?"

This Tony Stark doesn't really know _how_ to hold back his emotions for long. "No," Stark says. "We're going back to where _you_ should never left. Don't worry, Steve," Stark calls out. "The paralytic agent will ensure he drowns. You don't need to worry about entropy leaking over and harming you."

Rogers' expression is one of confusion, and then of total dread, because it's perfect timing — Clint and Natasha run back into the room, obviously alerted by now that Tony is still outside with the Hulk and that Steve is in danger.

"I won't live without you," Stark breathes into Rogers' neck.

And Clint and Natasha are just in time to see Stark haul himself and Rogers _through the window._

"No," Steve breathes, hauling himself closer, but it's too late, it's way too late. Thor comes across and helps Steve to his feet, and basically carries him over, but it's just in time to see Stark and Rogers plummeting through the ice, into the freezing sea below. " _No._ "

There's nothing much else to say but _no._ It's nothing much of a word, but _nothing_ will cover what's just happened, so _no_ will have to do.

* * *

Fury rescues them soon after, probably in fear they'll blow the Triskelion sky-high, and maybe they _should,_ but Steve's too tired to do anything. Agent Hill takes his report while he's in the infirmary being patched up, and when the doctor finishes with him, Steve goes and sits by Tony's bed, holding his hand until _Tony's_ fully patched up.

"They're both definitely dead," Natasha tells Steve, when he's gone through his report of events for the fifth consecutive time. SHIELD are always overly thorough. "We fished their bodies out. Dr. Banner doesn't think there'll be any problem with duplicate DNA existing in the same space, but he's sent the bodies to Dr. Reed Richards in New York regardless. They'll be held in stasis, but SHIELD's best theory is they'll be cremated, just to be sure."

Tony hangs his head for a moment, and Steve stares into space. Natasha nods. She can decipher all the answer she needs from silence. 

It's only when Fury _finally_ leaves them alone, muttering about luck and insanity and better bonding activities under his breath, that Steve feels like he can breathe. He's obviously not alone; Tony swings himself up to the edge of the helicarrier medbay bed, wincing a little at the pain. 

"You should rest," Steve says. "Sleep."

"I think you broke me on that," Tony says, looking at Steve unflinchingly. "Or are you going to tell me that _you're_ going to be able to sleep alone for a long time?"

Steve looks back at Tony, before shaking his head. "No. I don't think I will." 

"To clarify, I expect you in my bed," Tony says. "I don't know anyone else handsy enough to be a suitable alternative." 

"I'll come back later," Clint chirps unannounced from the doorway, turning on his heel and muttering what sounds like _nope_ under his breath, quite a lot.

"I am pretty handsy," Steve agrees, and curls a hand around the nape of Tony's neck. Tony makes a small sound, which sounds like relief, and lets Steve pull him close. Rests his forehead against Steve's, reassuring, like an anchor.

"The handsiest," Tony murmurs. It's entirely possible he's still slightly medicated.

"How do I know it's you?" Steve questions, even as his other hand is moving automatically into Tony's hair, his thumb catching on the curve of his jaw.

Tony considers it. "Fury's a dick. We're burning this base to the _ground._ I don't think I'm _ever_ going to manage to sleep again without you."

Steve purses his lips. "If it's not you, it's close enough for me."

"Close enough," Tony says, with a gruff laugh. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"So how do I know it's really _you_?" Tony says, his hands curling around Steve's elbows, dragging Steve closer almost insistently. _He pulled you to him,_ Stark said, and Steve can't help the small smile.

"Tony Stark likes limericks," Steve starts. 

Tony looks delighted. "You _do_ realize you look like you're just about to vomit out your inner organs, right?"

"Especially ones about dicks—" Steve carries on gamely, through gritted teeth.

"You're _the best,_ " Tony tells him, seriously.

"Oh, my god," Bruce whines in the background, "Clint said it was a bad time to visit. I should listen to him more."

"Yes, you should," Clint yells from further down the hallway.

"Someone show him _Star Trek_ so he can make _Kill us both, Spock_ jokes instead," Natasha suggests from the doorway.

"He'll chase you around, with his pants on the ground—" Steve grimaces. "That's about as far as I got. Do I have to finish it?"

"Something about _licks,_ " Tony says decisively. "Licks, dicks, _mm._ Finish it off. Sounds about right."

"Nnghghghh," Bruce manages, still hovering in the doorway, sticking his fingers in his ears and letting Natasha haul him and Clint away.

"Hmm," Tony says, ignoring all of them to smile at Steve. "It's the appalled expression on your face that makes it brilliant, Cap. You should _see_ yourself. You're hilarious."

"I spent a few days seeing myself. Literally. I think I'll survive not seeing my face for a long, long time."

"I have something else better for you to look at," Tony says. "Maybe after I teach you some more jokes, hm? We can't just keep making _that's what she said_ jokes at Fury, entertaining as it is."

"As long as neither of us end up as the punchline, I'm good with that," Steve says.

Tony makes another small sound, and closes his eyes.

Maybe it's love between them. Or maybe it's situational terror bonding them together. Or maybe it's something else entirely. They're going to need time to figure it out.

Thanks to Stark, they have that time.

 _I'm no superhero,_ Stark had said. What an idiot. Steve's eyes burn with tears. He was the bravest of them all. _I won't live without you._ Or the craziest. Maybe it's not mutually exclusive.

"C'mon," Tony says, soft and soothing, like he knows what Steve is thinking. He pulls back from their embrace and holds out his hand. "Let's go home, Cap." 

Tony doesn't say where home is, and Steve doesn't ask. He doesn't need to. He takes Tony's hand, and follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to:
> 
>   * LP for being a glorious, talented artist to work with. You were an amazing cheerleader, too, and a total inspiration to work with. Please check out her art [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/819309)! (Note: If the page doesn't open, please check back in a couple of hours - my artist and I are in different time zones.)
>   * Theron09. If you were my permanent beta, I'd be your alpha any day.
>   * ImmoralCrow, the WIND BENEATH MY WINGS. ♥ This wouldn't exist without you, darling. MWAH. This lovely lady also provided at least 50% of my dick jokes. I might slide her 12% of the credit for this whole fic.
>   * Whoever thought that last 60 seconds of _Iron Man 3_ was a good idea. Because no one stopped my insane decision to make this fic _Iron Man 3_ compliant. I went into IM3 thinking it was a delightful idea. I continued thinking it a good idea for 129 minutes. THAT LAST MINUTE NEARLY KILLED ME DEAD.
>   * You. For reading this far. You're a sweetheart and I'm sorry for all the jokes. Really. Sincerely. ~~Yeah, not really.~~
>   * And to prove I'm not lazy, the last line of Steve's limerick was going to be: "And fellates superheroes for kicks." But he couldn't make it come out of his mouth.
>   * That's what she said.
> 


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [My Heart, A Drum of Water [Remix]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5942851) by [Kiyaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar)




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